TEDIC: leading the conversations for Paraguay's new personal data protection law
3 minutes read | First published: October 27, 2023
Championing human rights in the digital environment, is the mission of TEDIC, an organisation that during the last years has been on a relentless mission to reshape the landscape of data protection legislation in Paraguay.
TEDIC adapted the Glass Room Misinformation Exhibition to a local context after developing intensive research. The exhibition was hosted in the Congress Library and drew key policymakers' attention. TEDIC’s team believes that engaging these figures is crucial since they can become allies in the country's fight for robust personal data protection laws. "We are very pleased that the targeted dissemination of the disinformation local research has generated a direct response from one of the presidents of the electoral authority. We will meet to bring all our actions and advocacy around misinformation, personal data and online gender-based violence".
Opening event at the Congress Library
Exhibition organised in collaboration with La Chispa
But TEDIC's outreach doesn't stop at the hallowed halls of Congress. They've allied with "La Chispa," an independent cultural hub to host the Misinformation Exhibition that was visited by over 500 young people.
TEDIC also collaborated with The Influence Industry Project to develop the "Guía del votante", based on the Data Detox Kit's voter's guide and translate the video "Your data, our democracy" into Spanish, materials that they use to raise awareness of the use of personal data in electoral campaigns. “The collaboration has helped to put the issue on the agenda two weeks before the party and simultaneous elections of December 18, 2022, which defined the main candidates for the presidency and congress of the country.”
Video Your data, our democracy traslated into Spanish by TEDIC.
Example of the adaptation of the Data Detox's voter's guide
To raise awareness about the way how political groups work with private firms to influence election outcomes, TEDIC hosted a workshop for journalists. They showed great interest, particularly because there are not many training spaces for journalists that facilitate the understanding of these issues of technology, personal data and human rights.
"We saw how candidates can use data through social networks and the need for data protection in our country. We also saw the need for the media and journalists to be more familiar with tools that can make it easier to see the candidates' statements, such as Meta's library".
There were the words of one of the journalists who participated in the workshop.
The partnership with Tactical Tech positioned TEDIC as a leader of the digital rights arena in Paraguay while boosting its advocacy work around data protection and misinformation.
Final report by the TEDIC team