Digital Enquirer Kit

The Glass Room presents Capsule 2.0, 'Nothing Personal?', our latest showcase of digital objects, both old and new. This second capsule explores how technologies are designed, branded and engineered to collect deeply personal data and influence our real-time behaviours.

Tactical Tech is looking for a committed and engaged individual to join our Data and Politics team as a Project Coordinator.

A new Data Detox Kit guide, adapted from content from our Digital Enquirer Kit, explains how to avoid falling for tricky URLs.

We are excited to present Tactical Tech's first ever podcast series, from our Exposing the Invisible project, in which experienced investigators discuss what drives them and the methods they use. Listen now!

The first two modules of our Digital Enquirer Kit, tackling the theme of misinformation, are now available on the free Atingi platform, with more modules and translations coming soon. Sign up now!

Our Executive Director and co-founder Stephanie Hankey, along with other experts, spoke to NPR about the implications of billions of people worldwide relying on WhatsApp - listen to the full podcast!

Good stories are relatable: they speak to the reader. Stories that have data at the centre are no different. Find out how to make numbers resonate with the reader in this new article from our Exposing the Invisible project!

Tactical Tech is offering an internship position for a student or a junior professional to assist The Glass Room project in preparing materials and supporting partners globally in organising events for their communities.

The digital media sphere is thriving in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas. Crucially, many “new digitals” are collaborating with each other - find out more with this list of initiatives from our Exposing the Invisible project.

Our Executive Director and co-founder Stephanie Hankey responds to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's testimony and argues that, when it comes to social media and young people: "it's Big Tech that needs to grow up".

Climate disasters are often described as 'natural' phenomena, only remotely fuelled by carbon emissions. This article from Exposing the Invisible explores pathways for investigating climate disasters and how - or whether - communities can adapt to them.

We are looking for a highly committed and experienced Project Coordinator for a group of projects under the key theme 'Online Influence and Opinion'. Read more and apply by October 5th!

From the tech boom to tech backlash, our understanding of the digital has become both deeply personal and deeply political. Two major Glass Room exhibitions tackling these themes are taking place in The Netherlands, in Leeuwarden and Amsterdam.

Detox de Datos Latinx is a social media campaign and project for young people in Latin America and the Caribbean to educate their peers about data and technology, based on our Data Detox x Youth.

'Technologies of Hope & Fear' looks at a curated selection of 100 technologies developed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This interactive research project allows you to explore the narratives of these pandemic products, the companies behind them - and the 'new normal' to which they aspire.

Our Exposing the Invisible project is hosting an online conference from 2nd-6th August to celebrate the people, initiatives & techniques that make investigation accessible. Attendance is free - register by 31st July!

Over the past year, our Data & Activism project has released five chapters full of playful exercises for civil society organisers, which have now been combined into the complete Organiser's Activity Book.

Working with data comes with risks. This four-step guide from our Data & Activism project is designed to help individuals, NGOs and other civil society actors create their own Data Policy.

You can’t trust everything you read, see or hear. Learn from a practitioner what it means to fact-check every piece of information you find and intend to use in this latest chapter of Exposing the Invisible: The Kit.

Never investigate alone. Collaboration is essential to your safety, well-being and effectiveness as an investigator, no matter the context. This guide from Exposing the Invisible: The Kit will help you plan, organise and run your collaboration with investigators, sources and others.

In our Annual Report 2020, you can read about our activities and successes across each of our projects last year, as well as who we are as an organisation and how we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our Exposing the Invisible project is looking for a short-term podcast producer to help create a series of brief, inspiring and informative podcasts.

The final part of our Data & Politics series on Medium looks at campaign apps around the 2021 election in Uganda, in cooperation with The App Analyst.

How was a mobile phone shop in Vietnam able to access personal data from voters in Ghana? The third part of our Data & Politics series on Medium looks at campaign apps in the 2020 Ghanaian election.

The Glass Room presents Capsule 1.0, a quarterly showcase of digital objects - old and new - from previous Community Edition series, independent investigations and collaborations. This first capsule explores how our phone numbers, face prints and personal data travel from our smartphones to different third-party organisations.

Civil society organisers rely on personal data and data-driven tactics to support individuals and groups. Find out about the importance of a data policy in this latest article from our Data & Activism project.

The second in this series of articles on Medium from our Data & Politics project looks at how the 'appification' of nearly every aspect of our lives has spread to politics, elections and issue campaigning.

Our Data and Politics project has released an updated version of The Influence Industry Long List, with 500 companies working with personal data to support political campaigns, from digital campaign consultants to data brokers.

A new chapter of Exposing the Invisible: The Kit looks at how combining different openly available information sources can lead to meaningful results in your investigation, using what is known as open source intelligence.

Finding and gathering information is essential to any investigation, but not all data sets are created equal. This new chapter of Exposing the Invisible: The Kit includes descriptions of common file types, methods for gathering data, and a how-to guide on converting your data into a format more easily analysed by computer programs.

We are looking for experienced Researchers/Writers with a strong understanding of digital investigative techniques, to help create written learning materials to train journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society on leading investigations, particularly in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, and Southeast Asia.

What do young people need to know about artificial intelligence (AI) in order to use it responsibly and make informed decisions? Our co-founder Stephanie Hankey spoke to the Goethe-Institut about the need for educational institutions and civil society to join forces to promote digital literacy.

Tactical Tech is seeking partners to work with us to deliver a new project that explores the topics of European youth, technology, culture and critical thinking based on our award-winning project The Glass Room.

Join us for a free four-week online Investigative Training Institute from 4th - 31st May 2021! You will learn from and collaborate with civil society investigators across the European Union to develop skills and techniques for secure investigations and digital research. Applications close 28th March.

We are excited to announce the launch of our new report 'Personal Data and the Influence Industry in Nigerian Elections' in partnership with CDD West Africa, which highlights techniques and technologies used by political actors in recent campaigns in Nigeria.

In this chapter of the Organiser's Activity Book, discover what types of personal data are created during online events. Learn about the tools that are available to host online events; the differences in how they work; and their risks and benefits.

Tactical Tech’s Data & Politics Team is excited to announce that the Swedish Postcode Foundation will support our latest initiative to create transparency on the use of personal data in political campaigns and the surrounding influence industry.

When you Google your name, you'll likely find a whole range of digital traces: do you want the world to find everything you've ever put online? A new Data Detox Kit article explains how to curate your online identity and accounts.

Check out this updated visualisation of the data you give away when you click 'I Agree', with key phrases from the terms and conditions of popular apps and services.

Our Data & Politics team has teamed up with The App Analyst to explore the personal data collected by election campaign apps. Read more on Medium - or nominate an app for analysis!

You may already know that airplanes, fast fashion and factory farming are harmful to the environment, but have you ever considered the carbon footprint of watching videos or sending emails? Find out more in a new chapter of the Data Detox Kit!

Together with partners from across the globe, Data & Politics' flagship report and guide 'Personal Data: Political Persuasion. Inside the Influence Industry' is now available in Arabic, Hausa, Khmer, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

If Europe’s elections are to remain contests of campaigns’ political ideas and not of their digital strategies, the systemic challenges to democracy must not be overlooked by the fires of the present moment. Varoon Bashyakarla from our Data & Politics team writes for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

In order to investigate the 'Influence Industry' in different contexts and countries, our Data & Politics project has partnered with a diverse range of organisations and individuals in the Global South. Find out more about the work these partners do.

You’ve identified and collected information that may serve as evidence in your investigation. What next? Learn how to analyse and verify it as well as how to evaluate your information sources in this new chapter from Exposing the Invisible: The Kit.

Misinformation and disinformation have dominated headlines in 2020 and eroded trust in the information that surrounds us, from social media to conventional media; from politicians to scientists; from text to photographs to videos. Reality, it seems, is increasingly only skin deep. Find out more in this article on Medium.

A new chapter from Exposing the Invisible: The Kit explores 'bio-investigations', including the collection and analysis of samples from the field, at home and in the your local community.

The Data Detox Kit Workshops page is now live! Here you'll find downloadable curriculum materials which have been developed and tested by Tactical Tech trainers and Data Detox Kit's global network of partners.

The Glass Room: Misinformation Edition, which can be visited online or hosted offline, has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Slovenian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian, with more coming soon. Take a look and visit the exhibition virtually in your preferred language!

The deadline for applications to our 'Exposing the Invisible' Investigative Institute from January-February 2021 has been extended to 11th December. Join us for a three-week online workshop to share skills and techniques for secure investigations and digital research methods across the European Union.

Our Voter’s Guide explains how personal data is collected and used by political parties and candidates – and what voters can do about it. The seven tips are now available in both English and Dutch.

As elections become increasingly data-intensive, our personal data is becoming a political asset for campaigns to leverage. This new animation, in English and Dutch, explains how this process happens - and what we can do about it.

The internet has become the perfect breeding ground and circulatory system for all kinds of untrue or inaccurate claims. Our Programme Director, Christy Lange, asks what citizens and technology users can do in the face of misinformation in an article for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

This summer, tens of thousands of British school students took to the streets to protest the use of an algorithm that predicted their end-of-school grades. A new article on Medium from the coordinator of our Youth project, Daisy Kidd, looks at the normalisation of monitoring and surveillance in education.

Our Exposing the Invisible team was awarded a European Commission grant to organise workshops, develop resources and create an ‘Investigative Institute’ for journalists, civil society investigators and researchers from September 2020 to August 2021.

This new chapter of the Organiser's Activity Book from our Data & Activism project looks at event promotion. The playful activities, aimed at organisers, campaigners and human rights defenders, explore the consequences, risks and benefits of using tools like social media in terms of personal data.

A new report, based on a roundtable with regional experts, looks at how the 'Influence Industry' operates in Sub-Saharan Africa. Read a summary on Medium by Amber Macintyre from our Data & Politics team.

Due to the pandemic and resulting quarantine, millions of people are using digital tools to continue their work and communication from home. A new article for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung by our Programme Director, Christy Lange, asks: how secure are the digital tools that have become a part of our everyday life?

Learn how to identify, record and represent the images of an event by mastering the basics of visual evidence collection in this new chapter from Exposing the Invisible: The Kit.

Stay digitally, physically and psychologically safe and aware of potential risks by adopting some basic good practices and tools to keep your human sources, yourself and your evidence protected in this new chapter of Exposing the Invisible: The Kit.

What data traces do we leave when we travel? A new chapter of the playful, interactive Organiser's Activity Book helps civil society organisers deal with 'data baggage', including flights, visas and accommodation.

This guest post for the Hacked Off campaign outlines our Data Detox Kit, and how it can help you with your digital security, privacy and wellbeing, as well as countering online misinformation.

Governments and tech companies are working together to establish bio and behavioural surveillance infrastructures in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Stephanie Hankey asks whether this will be a positive leap forward or a move in the wrong direction, in a new article for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

Whether you’re expressing your disapproval on the web or on the streets, technology will play a role in how you protest. This Data Detox guide will help activists and protesters stay vigilant when using smartphones, social media, and messaging apps.

The Glass Room: Misinformation Edition explores how social media and the web have changed the way we read information and react to it. This new exhibition, which can be visited online or hosted offline, tackles all forms of misinformation.

Social media platforms can bring us closer - but they also use algorithms to separate us. Find out how 'filter bubbles' are created, and how you can burst yours, in this article from the Data Detox Kit.

How much screen time is too much for children of different ages? This article from the Data Detox Kit provides essential advice for parents as part of the new 'Youth and Families' section.

The latest of over a dozen country studies from our Data & Politics team, carried out in collaboration with partners around the world, looks at the role of personal data in Dutch politics.

A new article on Medium by Stephanie Hankey, our Executive Director, and Daisy Kidd, coordinator of our upcoming Youth project, considers how digital technologies are designed for young people and asks the question: What does the future want?

Our Executive Director Stephanie Hankey writes for Project Syndicate about how we use systems driven by big data in crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.

The global community is undergoing unprecedented political, environmental and social changes. In this context, smartphones provide essential access to resources, services and vital connections to friends and family, This new research study asks: How can we design data-driven technologies for the real world, not the ideal world?

The Organiser’s Activity Book is a new self-learning resource from Tactical Tech’s Data and Activism project. The book is a collection of playful exercises for organisers within civil society who work with the personal data of human rights defenders, investigators, campaigners, and others who are taking part in social or political action.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? And how can we combat both online in the context of coronavirus? Find out in our guest post for the Stop Funding Hate campaign.

Find out about the impact of Tactical Tech's report ‘Personal Data: Political Persuasion’, an investigation into the global 'Influence Industry' by our Data & Politics team

Knowing how to spot health misinformation and stop it spreading can be just as important for your own wellbeing, and for those around you, as washing your hands. These new tips from the Data Detox Kit will help boost your immunity to coronavirus hoaxes!

We are delighted to announce that The Glass Room has been selected as one of the winners of Creative Review's The Annual 2020 award. The Glass Room was described as "thought-provoking...a fascinating look at our relationship with digital devices".

What does the proliferation of campaign apps mean for you? How do they collect our personal data, and what challenges do such technologies pose for our democracies?

In our Annual Report 2019, you can read about our activities and successes across our four main projects in the last year, as well as who we are as an organisation.

Data Detox x Youth is an activity book to help young people take control of their tech. This interactive toolkit encourages young people to think about different aspects of their digital lives, from their social media profiles to their passwords, with simple activities for reflection and play.

From Exposing the Invisible - The Kit: Get started with basic know-how about researching companies by understanding essential concepts and practices used in the ‘corporate world’, accessing useful resources to help you map business ownership and connections, and seeing how others investigate obscure business activities around the world.

Cet article aborde les questions de savoir quelle technologie est bonne, sûre et appropriée à utiliser en ces temps complexes si nous voulons agir et travailler de manière responsable et à distance. Comment décider de la technologie à laquelle nous devons faire confiance ? Il examine également ce qui pourrait être fait à l'avenir pour répondre à cette question beaucoup plus facilement qu'aujourd'hui.

Tactical Tech's co-founder Marek Tuszynski addresses the question of which technology is good, safe and appropriate to help us act and work responsibly and remotely during the coronavirus pandemic - and how to make answering this question easier in the future.

Our co-founder Stephanie Hankey writes on Medium about misinformation on WhatsApp.

From Exposing the Invisible - The Kit: Two investigators trace their process of creating the project ad.watch, an open-research-style investigation into political advertising on Facebook. This case study follows the project’s evolution from a limited endeavour to a growing resource that facilitates investigations on political ads around the world.

As the world goes online amid the coronavirus pandemic, it is no surprise that politics is moving online too. Tactical Tech’s Data and Politics Team have identified five digital campaigning trends that we’re likely to see more of in the coming weeks and months.

Many of us currently live and work in physical isolation, but we are constantly bombarded with digital information. Some of it is biased, some of it is fake, and some of it can cause unnecessary panic. Now is the perfect moment to polish your evidence collection and verification skills - so we've compiled a package of recommended resources for investigation-hungry citizens.

Misinformation circulates quickly, especially in times of crisis. During the coronavirus pandemic, separating fact from fiction is more important than ever. We've compiled 6 new tips to help you steer clear of misinformation online.

As a Tactical Tech Board Member, you will help shape the future of the organisation by overseeing the strategy. You will help build theory to move on our mission to investigate the evolving impact of digital technologies on society, with an aim to educate, share and create practical solutions.

Our co-founder and Executive Director Stephanie Hankey was interviewed by ABC News about how coronavirus misinformation is going viral on WhatsApp.

From Exposing the Invisible The Kit: How to investigate or aid your investigation by exploring visual signs or symbols, especially in cases where very little direct information is visible, available or accessible.

Tactical Tech's Products Team is looking for a Design Intern to assist with our print materials and public-facing websites. This is an ideal job for a student looking to work on highly visible projects.

From Exposing the Invisible The Kit: As you step into the offline world, see what it takes to plan, run and evaluate your field investigation safely and effectively.

From Exposing the Invisible The Kit: Start building your own contacts, learn how to develop, interact with and maintain sources and how to enrich your investigations with their cooperation.

From Exposing the Invisible the Kit: Gain the techniques, skills and good practices you need to safely identify, interview and maintain contact with people during your investigations in order to gather and strengthen evidence.

In 2020, Tactical Tech will embark on a new initiative that will seek to empower young people, aged 10-18, with the skills and critical thinking they need to shape their digital futures. Put simply, children and teenagers, should have a say in what their future looks like, and as we’ve seen with the burgeoning youth environmental movement, they are ready to take matters into their own hands.

Thank you to everyone who took part in The Glass Room San Francisco that ran from 16 October to 3 November 2019 with over 20,000 visitors, a daily program of events, and over 50 artworks that playfully and provocatively explore our relationship to technology.

We're excited to launch the Lite version of this website, optimised for people whose access to connections or newer devices are limited or restrictive. The Lite site uses a sparse design, and responds directly to the browser used. It is available to any computer that has a web browser –– even devices that don't support images or JavaScript.

Tactical Tech is looking to partner with like-minded organisations to outreach, translate, contextualise and co-create existing and new content around our research on digital election campaign techniques, particularly the report 'Personal Data: Political Persuasion. Inside the Influence Industry. How it works'.

In 2018, we celebrated the 15 year anniversary of the organisation. In our Annual Report you can read about what we acheived in this landmark year, across all of our projects, through research, toolkits, events and collaborations, towards of our mission of investigating and mitigating the evolving impact of technology on society.

This paper looks at shrinking civic space in terms of the digital, in particular the role that digital technologies can have on restricting the spaces of civil society organisations and their activities.

In March 2019, Tactical Tech celebrated its 16 year anniversary. As well as being a time to honour the past decade and a half of work, we used it as an opportunity to review our strategy, our working environment and our visual identity. Here's a short statement about what we've done and why.

The term “fake news” is used to refer to a wide range of inaccurate or misleading information, including hoaxes and scams. This new article from the Data Detox Kit team advises you on how to check and verify information online.

Whether you’ve gotten your new smartphone second-hand or purchased a new one, you’ve just welcomed a new device into your electronic family. As you would with any other valuable device like a computer or smart appliance, it’s not just about taking care of the outside, but making sure its insides are equipped to handle your information. The new step-by-step Data Detox guide will help you cultivate your new phone to help protect you.

A training curriculum that brings a holistic and feminist perspective to privacy and digital security trainings, including over 20 topics and workshops models.

Tinder, Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, Match, eHarmony... there are so many dating services out there. This Data Detox Bonus will introduce you to the third wheel in your dating life and give you tips on how to share less and keep more secrets.

The Kit is a self-learning toolkit for investigation techniques. It's the starting point for curious minded people who want to start uncovering the evidence and information around them.

In this chapter from Exposing the Invisible - The Kit, Wael Eskandar and Brad Murray explain ways to find and retrieve historical and ‘lost’ information from websites, to serve as evidence that something existed online, and ways to archive and preserve your own copies of webpages for future reference.

In this chapter from Exposing the Invisible - The Kit, Alison Killing explains how to use maps, geographic data and satellite imagery to find and visualise information for investigation.

A new guide and visual gallery from the Inside the Influence Industry project, looking at the global business of using data to sway voters.

An investigation by artist Joana Moll and Tactical Tech into the data industry surrounding dating profiles.

One of 14 country studies looking at how data is used in political processes. This report, published in partnership with Coding Rights, looks at the private-public data trade in Brazil.

There has been a lot of resources written on safer use of digital technologies and social media platforms for CSOs, grassroots groups, activists and politically-active individuals. Here we present a curated list of resources, a pool of links that can help you respond to existing risks and threats.

Our location reveals a wealth of information about us, not only about where we happen to be but also about what we are interested in, how we spend our time and what we value. This article explains what it is and how it's being used.

One of 14 country studies looking at how data is used in political processes. This report, published in partnership with Elonnai Hickok, looks at the use of digital platforms and technologies in Indian elections.

At every stage, travelling means giving away an immense amount of data that is either required by governments or by companies that provide travel-related services, or that can be automatically generated in the background. This article gives insight into the data you give away when travelling.

In this overview we analyse the challenges faced by politically-active women who are using digital technologies to express themselves, politically organise or carry out their work.

Caroline Sinders explains how machine learning is already changing product design and software and how this might impact ethics and the agency of humans.

Kate J. Sim examines how the prevailing cultural notion of sexual assault survivors as liars, and the widely held belief of technological objectivity, converge to instruct the design of anti-rape technologies.

The GDPR compliance explained with a last-minute checklist for civil society organisations and grassroot groups to help you check that you are handling data according to the GDPR requirements.

When you tweet your opinion about Brexit or Trump, you probably don't expect the content of your tweet to become part of an analysis of public opinion on the topic. This article explains the emerging field of digital listening and how it assess the feeling of individual potential voters and the overall public mood.

Weaponised design is a process that allows for harm of users within the defined bounds of a designed system. This article takes a look at how it can be faciliated by designers who are oblivious to the politics of digital infrastructure or consider their design practice output to be apolitical.

An essay exploring the concept of technofixes - the use of data and technology to solve social, environmental and political problems.

This article examines a few moments related to the history of homosexuality and its categorisation. It starts with recent facial recognition algorithms to distinguish straight and gay faces and ends with Alan Turing’s questions about gender and The Imitation Game.

Lost in the Small Print highlights relevant information that's usually hidden in the privacy policies of the apps and services we use everyday.

Visualising Information for Advocacy is a book about how advocates and activists use visual elements in their campaigns. Download the 170-page book with over 60 examples of visual information campaigns from around the world. Available in English, Spanish and Arabic.

A website made in collaboration with the participants of the Gender and Technology Institutes to showcase activities, how-tos, storytelling and tutorials.

The Trainer's Manual is the counterpart to the Holistic Security Strategy Manual for Human Rights Defenders. It reflects on further learnings and best practices grown out of Tactical Tech's engagements with experts and trainers on the overall protection, digital security, and psychosocial well-being for human rights defenders between 2013 and 2015.

Whether you are trying to clean your data, spot patterns, or create a data visualisation, there are many free tools available online. This resource helps you find the one that's best suited to you.

This manual is a community-built resource for women and trans activists, human rights defenders and technologists to help them work safely online and off. It is designed to be a living, growing collection of practical guidance, built out of the Gender and Technology Institutes.

A recommended collection of open-source tools, apps and services for better privacy and control, plus a selection of guides, tutorials, and videos to help you better understand and manage your digital traces.

An interactive resource which aims to increase transparency about the online data industry by illustrating who tracks us when we browse the internet.

A guide on how to clean, explore and understand your data, based on two courses created for The School of Data.

One of the 10 Security In-a-box Tactics Guides, explaining what malware and phishing attacks are, the different types, and how to prevent them on your device.