Warming up to the 20th conference DATA CITIES: Smart Technologies, Tracking & Human Rights (25-27 September 2020), Disruption Network Lab invite for a workshop by Amber Macintyre of Tactical Tech on safely handling personal data when organising events, demonstrations or workshops. Together the participants work on exploring issues surrounding personal data, and on understanding what decisions we can make to reduce risks.

NGOs, independent initiatives and communities increasingly work with personal data in many of their operations, such as planning demonstrations, running petitions, communicating with their audiences through mailing lists, social media campaigns, and fundraising. Due to the variety of problems surrounding personal data including privacy, security and finding the right tools, many organisers are looking for guidance on how to make the right decisions on how to use personal data. However, most of the guidance is usually legal and technical, such as GDPR, and has little direction for what this looks like for every day practice.

This workshop presents a series of questions and frameworks for organisations, independent initiatives and communities to use to make decisions around personal data. The specific example of organising meetings, demonstrations, workshops and other types of events is used. This includes how people show interest in attending any type of event, how to get them there, how to publicise the event, and how to evaluate its success – all of which require interaction with personal data. The framework is designed to support you in leading your own exploration and understanding the solutions needed to reduce the risks associated with personal data.

Tactical Tech is an international NGO that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society. Their applied research project Data and Activism examines the impact of data collection and profiling on human rights defenders, activists and networks.