In the last months, digital security has been a recurring and very relevant issue in our work. To start with, we as Future Challenges have outlined and established our own secure digital infrastructure. Apart from that, our Ugandan partners have placed the issue on the agenda of the recently launched Digital Human Rights Lab (DHRLab). For the kick-off event of the joint project we are implementing with betterplace lab, Pollicy and GIZ Uganda, different organizations working in the field of Human Rights came together and sounded out possibilities of cooperation as well as relevant topics for digital Human Rights activism. One of the three working groups or Communities of Practice (CoP) created during the event particularly emphasizes digital security. In the beginning of November, a first security workshop took place in Kampala. Facilitated by Daniel Moßbrucker from the Deutsche Welle Academy, seven members of the CoP ‘Digital Security’ carried out a needs assessment and explored the use and feasibility of different solutions to be safe from potential digital threats – the same as we at Future Challenges did a month earlier in Berlin.
Knowing and modeling threats is the first challenge of ensuring digital safety. As noted, there is a lot “out there”, both concerning perils as well as solutions. Unsurprisingly, one quickly runs the risk of losing focus, whether as an organization or an individual. Thus, it is – in a first step – crucial to model potential threats and detect possible adversaries. After having thought in threat scenarios, it is time to develop – in a second step – a specific and adjusted security concept. Differently put, the process is primarily about attuning tools and solutions to your digital starting point and concrete needs.
In the process of setting up and implementing our own security infrastructure, we realized the importance of a second challenging factor: time. On the one hand, it actually took us some time to identify threats we may face, search for online as well as offline tools, and cooperatively think about solutions. On the other hand, we experienced first-hand that implementing a strategy once decided on is similarly time-consuming. To give a rather simple example, it can be an afternoon task to create proper passwords and to enable a two-factor authentication in order to secure accounts.
Alas, digital security does not come along as a one-size-fits-all solution. On the contrary, seeking digital safety in a world of potential threats is a constant process of analyzing, modeling, and learning. As Future Challenges, we are part of this process, and are actively engaged in making Human Rights work a more secure endeavor.