WorldRisk

Which passport do you hold?

Risk to a traveller depends on their nationality. A country that sanctions your destination, or is sanctioned by it, changes how you are treated on arrival. Choosing here adjusts every score on the site.

We hold travel advice written for four nationalities so far. Selecting anything else shows the neutral baseline, and every page says so where it applies rather than presenting it as an assessment made for you.

Kept in your browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere, and you can change it at any time from the header.

All countries

Serbia

36Caution36 of 100, Caution band, 25 to 49good confidence(7/7 dimensions)
What this score means
Extreme75 to 100
Severe and systematic. Device search, interception and detention over online activity are documented rather than theoretical. Reconsider what you carry and what you say.
High50 to 74
Substantial and consistently evidenced measures. Device inspection, monitored networks or restricted services should be expected rather than treated as unlikely.
Caution25 to 49
Some risk, and manageable with precautions. Measures are evidenced but are narrow, inconsistently applied, or the picture is mixed.
Low0 to 24
Ordinary precautions. No systematic device search, network restriction or prosecution of visitors for online speech is evidenced.

Government travel advice is written for one citizenry, so the same country carries a different assessment depending on your passport. Change it in the header.

Showing the baseline, which weights every issuer equally. No government in our corpus publishes travel advice written for you, so this is not addressed to you specifically.

Dimensions

Each dimension is scored independently, because the traveller who cares about legal exposure for what they have posted is often not the one carrying client data. Higher means more risk.

Surveillance and interception

How comprehensively are communications intercepted, retained, and monitored, and is commercial spyware in use?

85Extreme85 of 100, Extreme band, 75 to 100

good confidence6 independent sourcesEvidence is ageing: contributing sources are weighted at 51% of full strength.

Why this score (18 sources)

  • Freedom House 2026 scored SRB 2 of 4 on freedom to express personal views on sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution.

    Freedom House, Freedom in the World · observed 2026-01-01

  • V-Dem Digital Society Project 2025 scored SRB 1.97 of 4 on how comprehensively the government monitors social media and private online communication, where higher is freer.

    V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Digital Society Project · observed 2025-12-31

  • V-Dem Digital Society Project 2025 scored SRB 3.77 of 4 on how far privacy protection law shields communications from government access, where higher is freer. This measures what privacy law permits rather than what monitoring is practised, so it is read here as a constraint on interception rather than a measurement of it.

    V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Digital Society Project · observed 2025-12-31

  • The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2025 scored SRB 0.39 of 1 on whether freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy is effectively guaranteed, a measure built from expert assessments of warrantless interception of communications.

    World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index, sub-factor 4.6 · observed 2025-01-01

  • The report highlights that Serbia has installed more than 8,000 Chinese-style surveillance cameras with facial recognition abilities across the country, ostensibly to combat crime and ensure security and public order.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2024-06-28 · extracted by language model

  • The same year, technology non-profit Qurium detected a FindFace server in Serbia hosted by mCloud, which also hosted the NoviSpy spyware that reports say has been used by Serbia’s BIA intelligence agency to target journalists and activists .

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2026-06-01 · extracted by language model

  • In Serbia, a data leak from the state-owned IT firm Informatika A.D confirmed that the country’s Security-Information Agency has been using the Israeli-developed software Cellebrite, which provides digital forensic tools commonly used by law enforcement and governments to extract data from electronic devices, since at least 2015.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-08-21 · extracted by language model

  • Amnesty International concluded there was a high probability that one or more actors within Serbia’s state apparatus, or agents acting on their behalf, were behind the ‘one-click’ Pegasus attack.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-03-27 · extracted by language model

  • According to BIRN’s investigation and forensic analysis by Amnesty International, it has been confirmed in at least four cases, Serbian authorities used Cellebrite tools to unlock and copy data from the phones of civic activists, and then installed the spy software NoviSpy on those devices.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-02-26 · extracted by language model

  • The Serbian police and intelligence agencies are increasingly buying advanced video surveillance systems on a large scale, with one BIRN investigation finding the state has imported over the past decade more than 20 International Mobile Subscriber Identity, or IMSI, catchers capable of indiscriminately harvesting communications from mobile phones.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-02-13 · extracted by language model

  • In the report ‘ A Digital Prison: Surveillance and the Suppression of Civil Society in Serbia’ published on 16 December 2024, Amnesty International revealed that Serbian authorities were using mobile forensic products made by the Israeli company Cellebrite to extract data from the phones of journalists and activists, while new Serbian spyware ‘NoviSpy’ had been developed to infect devices and capture confidential information, including contact lists, which were then uploaded to a government-controlled server.

    ARTICLE 19, via a site scoped search · observed 2024-12-18 · extracted by language model

  • This is just one of many cases where Serbia’s security agency over the past year illegally accessed activists’ phones, extracting data or installing spyware to track their activities.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2024-12-16 · extracted by language model

  • Serbia’s main intelligence agency has a track record of deploying spyware and other digital surveillance tools, such as Cytrox’s Predator , Circles , Cyberbit , and FinSpy .

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2023-12-08 · extracted by language model

  • Coordinated bot attacks and spyware, including NSO Group’s Pegasus, have emerged as tools of digital censorship against journalists and media outlets.

    Index on Censorship, via a site scoped search · observed 2026-07-16 · extracted by language model

  • Amnesty International later confirmed that spyware had been used to target the phones of several detained activists.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-07-22 · extracted by language model

  • It also participated in three more tenders in which EPS obtained sophisticated surveillance equipment and software.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2025-02-12 · extracted by language model

  • “There is no public regulation governing the application of this specific technology,” Pejic Nikic told BIRN.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2024-12-12 · extracted by language model

  • Earlier this year, BIRN identified dozens of public enterprises, institutions and schools that had procured facial recognition technology despite the gathering of biometric data being illegal in all but the most exceptional cases.

    Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search · observed 2024-08-02 · extracted by language model

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

2 excluded sources
  • Access Now feed, observed 2023-11-28: aged out after 3 years.
  • Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search, observed 2024-07-01: aged out after 2 years.

Speech and legal exposure

What legal risk attaches to what I have said online, or say while I am there?

58High58 of 100, High band, 50 to 74

good confidence9 independent sources

Why this score (13 sources)

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Network threat

How hostile is the network environment to a foreign visitor, from state actors and criminals alike?

35Caution35 of 100, Caution band, 25 to 49

good confidence4 independent sources

Why this score (4 sources)

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Border device risk

How likely is my device to be searched, imaged, or seized at the border, and can I be compelled to unlock it?

24Low24 of 100, Low band, 0 to 24

good confidence5 independent sources

No reports were found of devices being searched, imaged or seized at this border, or of travellers being compelled to unlock them. The score below is drawn from general indicators for this country rather than from anything observed about this risk, so it describes an absence of reports rather than evidence that the risk is absent.

What the score rests on (5 indirect sources)

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Encryption and VPN legality

Are VPNs and strong encryption lawful, and can I be required to install an application or hand over keys?

19Low19 of 100, Low band, 0 to 24

good confidence2 independent sources

Why this score (2 sources)

  • V-Dem Digital Society Project 2025 scored SRB 3.51 of 4 on whether the government regulates the internet in a way consistent with international human rights standards, where higher is freer. This does not establish whether encryption or VPN use is lawful. It measures internet regulation in general, and is used as indirect evidence because the only survey that reads encryption law directly was published in 2019.

    V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Digital Society Project · observed 2025-12-31

  • OONI recorded no confirmed blocking across 10,958 measurements of anonymity and censorship circumvention tools in SRB over the 90 days to 2026-10-16, with 130 further results inconclusive.

    Open Observatory of Network Interference, OONI measurement data · observed 2026-10-16

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Connectivity continuity

How likely am I to lose access to the internet, or to the specific tools I depend on?

15Low15 of 100, Low band, 0 to 24

good confidence6 independent sources

Why this score (7 sources)

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Data jurisdiction

What happens to corporate or client data I carry into the jurisdiction?

13Low13 of 100, Low band, 0 to 24

moderate confidence1 independent source

Why this score (1 source)

Report an inaccuracy (corrections need a link to the reporting, statute or research that shows it).

Trend

02550751002026-08-162026-10-16

The overall score is up 10.4 points over 61 days, from 25.5 to 35.9. Most movement is the event overlay decaying rather than anything happening: a news signal loses half its weight every three weeks, so a score drifts back toward its structural baseline on its own. A step that holds is the one worth reading.

Check this yourself

These are not inputs to the score for Serbia. They are where to look if you want to test what is above against something we did not use.

Sources

This assessment draws on 14 sources: ARTICLE 19, via a site scoped search; Auswärtiges Amt, Reise- und Sicherheitshinweise; Balkan Insight (BIRN), via a site scoped search; Committee to Protect Journalists, via a site scoped search; Freedom House, Freedom in the World; Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, obstacles to access; Global Affairs Canada, Travel advice and advisories; Index on Censorship, via a site scoped search; International Telecommunication Union, Global Cybersecurity Index; Open Observatory of Network Interference, OONI measurement data; UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Foreign travel advice; US Department of State, Travel Advisories; V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Digital Society Project; World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index, sub-factor 4.6. Every contributing claim is quoted with its origin and date above. Model version 0.12.0, computed 2026-10-16.

If something here is wrong, say so. Corrections are handled in public, and we correct because the evidence is wrong, not because someone objects.