Surveillance of civil society is on the rise. It’s a major cause for concern for human rights defenders, social movements and civil society organisations. Governments have been using digital technologies to surveil activists, journalists, nongovernmental organisations and researchers in countries like Brazil, Morocco, Mexico, Colombia, the US and Spain, among others. This surveillance can be even greater for communities of colour and women’s rights organisations.
Surveillance is a critical threat to organisations and ecosystems’ digital resilience, as it can severely affect or obstruct their ability to communicate or organise themselves, and it can lead to harm to defenders and activists. In this community call, we’ll discuss how increasing communities’ abilities to protect themselves from digital security threats is critical for sustainability and efforts around achieving social justice. We’ll also talk about the importance of ensuring individuals’ wellbeing, including the adoption of infrastructures that prepare for and respond to these threats.
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY CALL: FIGHTING SURVEILLANCE, FOSTERING DIGITAL RESILIENCE
Join us on 27 April, 4-5.30pm UTC to discuss how increasing surveillance across many countries impacts civil society organisations and what strategies can be adopted to strengthen digital resilience in these scenarios.
During the call, we will hear from Cathy Richards, from our team, who will share how to think holistically about the impact surveillance can have on an organisation’s operations from our lens of digital resilience. We’ll also be joined by Débora Calderón, regional advocacy coordinator at Derechos Digitales, and Paul Aguilar, supervisor of the Digital Security program at SocialTIC, who will share their insights related to how surveillance has impacted civil society in Latin America and the Caribbean and talk about current strategies for resisting surveillance in their day to day work as well as through advocacy and organising. Our team will also share some of our reflections and strategies from our work supporting social justice actors with their own digital resilience.
Anyone who is interested in taking part in this conversation is welcome! We’re interested in learning more about how you and your community are navigating increasing surveillance, including how you’ve been impacted by it, what you’re doing to protect yourself from it and what local efforts, grounded in communities, look like.
After you register, we will get in touch with you to send more information about how to join the call. This community call will be held in English, on 27th April, at 4-5.30pm UTC.
See you then! In the meantime, feel free to write to hello[at]theengineroom.org if you have any questions.
Image by Jürgen Jester via Unsplash.