Six Years of Dangerous Misconceptions Targeting Ola Bini and Digital Rights in Ecuador

Ola Bini was first detained in Quito’s airport six years ago, called a “Russian hacker,” and accused of “alleged participation in the crime of assault on the integrity of computer systems.” It wouldn’t take long for Ecuadorean authorities to find out that he was Swedish and an internationally respected free software developer and computer expert. 

Lacking evidence, authorities rapidly changed the criminal offense underpinning the accusation against Bini and struggled to build a case based on a mere image that shows no wrongdoing. Yet, Bini remained arbitrarily detained for 70 days in 2019 and outrageously remains under criminal prosecution.

This week, the Observation Mission monitoring Ola Bini’s case is again calling out the prosecution’s inaccuracies and abuses that weaponize misunderstandings about computer security, undermining both Bini’s rights and digital security more broadly. The Observation Mission is comprised of digital and human rights organizations, including EFF. Specifically, we highlight how Ecuadorean law enforcement authorities have tried to associate the use of Tor, a crucial privacy protection tool, with inherently suspicious activity. 

Following a RightsCon 2025 session about the flaws and risks of such an interpretation, we are releasing this week a technical statement (see below) pointing out why Ecuadorean courts must reaffirm Bini’s innocence and repudiate misconceptions about technology and technical knowledge that only disguise the prosecutor’s lack of evidence supporting the accusations against Bini. 

Let’s not forget that Bini was unanimously acquitted in early 2023. Nonetheless, the Prosecutor’s Office appealed and the majority of the appeals court considered him guilty of attempted unauthorized access of a telecommunications system. The reasoning leading to this conclusion has many problems, including mixing the concepts of private and public IP addresses and disregarding key elements of the acquittal sentence.  

The ruling also refers to the use of Tor. Among other issues, the prosecution argued that Tor is not a tool known by any person except for technical experts since its purpose is to hide your identity on the internet while leaving no trace you’re using it. As we stressed at RightsCon, this argument turns the use of a privacy-protective, security-enhancing technology into an indication of suspicious criminal activity, which is a dangerous extrapolation of the “nothing-to-hide argument.” 

The prosecutor’s logic, which the majority appeal ruling endorses, is if you’re keeping your online activities private it’s because you’re most likely doing something wrong, instead of we all have privacy rights, so we are entitled to use technologies that ensure privacy and security by default. 

Backing such an understanding in a court ruling sets an extremely worrying precedent for privacy and security online. The use of Tor must not be up for grabs when a prosecutor lacks actual evidence to sustain a criminal case.

Bini’s defense has appealed the unfounded conviction. We remain vigilant, hoping that the Ecuadorean judicial system will correct the course as per basic tenets of the right to a fair trial, recognizing the weakness of the case rather than surrendering to pressure and prejudice. It’s past time for justice to prevail in this case. Six years of a lingering flimsy prosecution coupled with the undue restriction of Bini’s fundamental rights is already far too long.

Read the English translation of the statement below (see here the original one in Spanish):

TECHNICAL STATEMENT
Ola Bini’s innocence must be reaffirmed 

In the context of RightsCon Taipei 2025, the Observation Mission of the Ola Bini case and the Tor Project organized a virtual session to analyze the legal proceedings against the digital security expert in Ecuador and to discuss to what extent and with what implications the use of the Tor digital tool is criminalized¹. In that session, which included organizations and speakers from civil society from different countries, we reached the following conclusions and technical consensuses: 

1. The criminal case against Bini was initiated by political motivations and actors and has been marked by dozens of irregularities and illegalities that undermine its legal legitimacy and technical viability. Rather than a criminal case, this is a persecution. 
2. The way the elements of conviction of the case were established sets a dangerous precedent for the protection of digital rights and expert knowledge in the digital realm in Ecuador and the region. 
3. The construction of the case and the elements presented as evidence by the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office (EAG) are riddled with serious procedural distortions and/or significant technical errors2. 
4. Furthermore, to substantiate the crime supposedly under investigation, the EAG has not even required a digital forensic examination that demonstrate whether any kind of system (be it computer, telematic, or telecommunications) was accessed without authorization. 
5. The reasoning used by the Appeals Court to justify its guilty verdict lacks sufficient elements to prove that Ola Bini committed the alleged crime. This not only violates the rights of the digital expert but also creates precedents of arbitrariness that are dangerous for the rule of law³. 
6. More specifically, because of the conviction, part of the Ecuadorian judiciary is creating a concerning precedent for the exercise of the rights to online security and privacy, by holding that the mere use of the Tor tool is sufficient indication of the commission of a criminal act. 
7. Furthermore, contrary to the global trend that should prevail, this ruling could even inspire courts to criminalize the use of other digital tools used for the defense of human rights online, such as VPNs, which are particularly useful for key actors—like journalists, human rights defenders, academics, and others—in authoritarian political contexts. 
8. Around the world, millions of people, including state security agencies, use Tor to carry out their activities. In this context, although the use of Tor is not the central focus of analysis in the present case, the current conviction—part of a politically motivated process lacking technical grounding—constitutes a judicial interpretation that could negatively impact the exercise of the aforementioned rights. 

For these reasons, and six years after the beginning of Ola Bini’s criminal case, the undersigned civil society organizations call on the relevant Ecuadorian judicial authorities to reaffirm Bini’s presumption of innocence at the appropriate procedural stage, as was the first instance ruling demonstrated.

The Observation Mission will continue monitoring the development of the case until its conclusion, to ensure compliance with due process guarantees and to raise awareness of the case’s implications for the protection of digital rights.

1. RightsCon is the leading global summit on human rights in the digital age, organized by Access Now. ↩

2. See https://www.accessnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Informe-final-Caso-Ola-Bini.pdf ↩

3. The Tribunal is composed of Maritza Romero, Fabián Fabara and Narcisa Pacheco. The majority decision is from Fabara and Pacheco. ↩