Practice digital self-defence

Internet technologies can vastly enhance the work of activists and organizers, but tapping into these benefits comes with risks, and surveillance is a big one!

In 18th century New York, Black, mixed-race, and Indigenous people were required to carry lighted lanterns after dark so that their movements could be monitored by authorities. Today, public and private spaces are lit up by a range of technologies, from street cameras to mobile phones, smart watches to kitchen appliances. There are little eyes and ears everywhere we look. As you read this sentence, your device, not unlike a beaming lantern, is transmitting data about you that is likely being recorded, distributed, and perhaps even sold.

Don’t wither in powerlessness beneath the surveillance state. As someone somewhere on the internet once said, ‘Big brother is watching, keep him entertained.’

In July 2021, the Pegasus Project investigation brought to light the surveillance of thousands of activists, political dissidents, and journalists in over 50 countries from Mexico to Palestine, whose phones had been infected with Pegasus spyware. When infected, a phone turns into a 24-hour surveillance device, giving intruders unrestricted access to everything on the device, including real-time conversations or footage by secretly activating microphones and cameras.

The good news is, we’re not powerless to prevent this! Going up against vast technical systems and protecting all of your data, all of the time, can seem exhausting, but once you understand the unique threats you or your movement may face and some simple ways to protect against them, there are plenty of simple tools available to counter those threats. Platforms such as the Surveillance Self-Defense website helps users to put together a security plan tailored to their identified threat model, and Security in a Box provides digital security tools and tactics developed for non-anglophone users in the Global Gouth. Initiatives such as the Digital Defenders Programme support activists with grants and digital security emergencies.

Unfortunately, your digital footprints are not limited to the time you spend connected to the internet. Online and offline threats have become overlapping and mutually reinforcing. In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security recorded at least 270 hours of surveillance footage of protests following the death of George Floyd, collected through equipment such as drones, unmanned aircrafts, and stingrays (cell tower simulators). The data collected will be accessible to local police departments and other federal agencies online to use in future investigations and could prompt the continued surveillance of individuals beyond the protest.

In Chongqing, a network of surveillance cameras (one for every six residents) uses facial recognition systems to record data such as ethnicity and party membership that can be used to “predict” and pre-empt unrest before it occurs. To push back against surveillance, artists, designers and engineers have come up with a range of ingenious methods. Sousveillance (inverse surveillance) acts as a form of “citizen undersight” involving the monitoring, recording, and study of surveillance systems and their proponents. This can include recording authority figures and their actions, for instance filming a police officer making an arrest.

In 2010, C.V.Dazzle, a project by artist Adam Harvey described as “expressive interference,” explored the ways in which stylized hair and make-up — cubist-like colorful shapes strategically painted on certain parts of the face — could obstruct the patterns that facial recognition algorithms were designed to look for. Today, the Dazzle Club wears anti-surveillance makeup in silent protest of involuntary recognition. Designer Ewa Nowak creates mask-like “face jewelry” that distorts your face, and Accessories for the Paranoid explores an alternative approach to data security through objects that can generate fake data or blur the digital profiles of users.

With the rapidly changing nature of tech development, practicing digital self-defense is as much a mindset as it is technical capacity. Mind your security, stay up-to-date, and don’t wither in powerlessness beneath the surveillance state. As someone somewhere on the internet once said, “Big brother is watching, keep him entertained.”