General profile Digital profile

Syria

Digital Snapshot – Key Policies and Laws

Syria’s digital profile is defined less by scale than by transition. In early 2025, the country had about 9.01 million internet users, 35.8% internet penetration, and 19.5 million mobile connections, while Internet Society Pulse rated its overall internet resilience at 31/100 and e-government readiness at 38.88. These figures place Syria well below stronger regional performers and underline that its digital agenda is still shaped by reconstruction, not maturity.

The most consequential recent shift was geopolitical: after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the US revoked broad Syria sanctions effective 1 July 2025. That did not solve Syria’s digital problems, but it materially widened the space for software access, cloud services, financial flows, infrastructure investment, and international partnerships.

Sanctions lift and the digital reset

Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria entered a new phase of digital and economic reopening. A key turning point came when the US revoked broad country-based sanctions, effective July 1, 2025, removing long-standing barriers to global digital integration. For years, sanctions had constrained access to software, cloud services, financial platforms, and international partnerships, shaping a highly restricted digital environment. Their removal did not instantly transform the landscape, but it significantly widened the space for reform. Syrian businesses, developers, and users began reconnecting to global tools and markets, while policymakers moved to attract investment and rebuild digital infrastructure. At the same time, challenges remain: regulatory uncertainty, weak institutions, and infrastructure gaps continue to limit the pace and inclusiveness of recovery. The shift is therefore best understood not as a clean break, but as the opening of a new, still-fragile chapter in Syria’s digital governance trajectory.

At the policy level, Syria does have a formal state framework for digital transformation. The government adopted a national digital transformation strategy for government services in August 2021, structured around a nine-year implementation horizon to 2030 and 49 projects. It later added a national cloud computing policy in December 2022, a cybersecurity strategy adopted in June 2023, and Law No. 12 of 2024 on electronic personal data protection, with executive instructions issued in July 2024. Together, these measures show a state seeking to build a more modern digital policy architecture.

That modernisation drive, however, coexists with a harder legacy of control. Law No. 20 of 2022 on cybercrime was widely criticised by digital-rights groups as a tool that expanded the authorities’ power to police online speech and privacy under broad and vague provisions. Such a tension is central to Syria’s digital profile: recent privacy and cybersecurity rules suggest institutional development, but the country’s governance model still carries deep surveillance-era baggage.

Infrastructure and market policy are now moving faster than before. Syria has launched Barq Net, a nationwide FTTP initiative covering all 14 governorates; announced its first practical 5G pilot in May 2025; and signed on to the Medusa submarine cable project in Tartous, while presenting SilkLink as the backbone of a rebuilt national fibre network. In parallel, the state-backed SEEP Online e-commerce platform, new Visa and Mastercard partnerships, and the earlier digital signature and IT services law show a gradual effort to connect telecom reform, e-payments, e-commerce, and the wider digital economy.

Emerging technologies remain at an early stage. Syria has discussed AI governance in regional forums and presented AI as a tool to improve government performance, but evidently, there is no standalone national AI strategy or AI law. The picture is therefore one of partial layering rather than full consolidation: cloud policy exists, 5G rollout has begun, digital payments are expanding, and data protection has been formalised, yet weak infrastructure, limited competition, institutional fragility, and unresolved rights concerns continue to shape the country’s digital trajectory.

Syria’s permanent mission to the UN:

Syria’s Permanent Mission in Geneva represents the Syrian Arab Republic at the UN Office at Geneva and at other international organisations based in Switzerland. According to UN Geneva’s official Blue Book, the mission is located at the International Centre Cointrin (ICC), Route de Pré-Bois 20, Geneva, and the current Permanent Representative is H.E. Mr Haydar Ali Ahmad, who presented his credentials in February 2023. The mission is Syria’s main diplomatic channel in Geneva for multilateral engagement on issues such as human rights, humanitarian affairs, disarmament, health, labour, and other UN processes.

Official UNOG website: https://www.ungeneva.org/en/blue-book/missions/member-states/syrian-arab-republic