Digital security is an area of comprehensive protection that is ever more important. PBI has seen how digital security incidents increase every year and, in parallel, human rights defenders’ concerns about their digital self-protection is also on the rise.
Concern from Colombian human rights defenders is not baseless and cannot be disregarded. Scandals appear periodically about the abuse of the state surveillance apparatus. One example, is the case of Laura Sarabia and Armando Benedetti. Former Chief of Staff, Laura Sarabia, and former ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, were the protagonists of a tangled case of wiretapping that ended with the dismissal of both individuals from their respective positions. In other cases, it is the State that suffers a cyber-attack, putting the data of millions of citizens at risk.
With these significant digital threats, it is very difficult for human rights defenders and organizations to protect themselves. We must keep in mind the mantra: “There is no such thing as total digital security.” However, it is also true that amid broad and collective fears of digital threats, most turn out to be false alarms when analyzed by experts. Taking advantage of a lack of information, fear and uncertainty are used as central tactics to block, mislead, and subjugate defenders.
PBI Colombia believes that the software and devices that we use, or the financial resources available to acquire cybersecurity systems, are not the most important aspect of security. Our digital security routine and practices are the most important aspect. Most specialized groups agree that digital security breaches are usually caused by user errors and these can be minimized or mitigated by promoting best practices. These best practices can be incorporated little by little, according to the needs identified by users and the organizations themselves. This process may initially seem dense or difficult, but over time they will become easier and more gratifying.
In a country where the murder of human rights defenders is ongoing, all potential protection mechanisms are important and deserve our time and energy.
As a comprehensive protection organization, we believe that training is the first step to increase user and organizational awareness of best practices on the protection of information and devices. Training can establish basic knowledge about the applications and technologies that we use every day and demystify false news shared among defenders. The best way to close the digital gap is by promoting digital autonomy so that individuals and organizations can decide for themselves, based on their own experience, the practices that are useful and necessary.
We want to share information about safer tools that are more respectful of user privacy. Whatsapp and Signal may have the same end-to-end encryption mechanism, but the terms and conditions are not equal. While Signal tries to collect and store the smallest possible amount of private user information, Whatsapp capitalizes on customer information as a commodity, generating economic benefits, through the sale of private information or by using this data in its own projects or those of third party companies.
The reality is that many times we, the users, are the ones who hand over our personal information without considering the consequences. Personal information can be extremely sensitive and serve to deceive, extort, threaten, or even harm an individual. This applies to all sectors of the population but is especially dangerous for defenders who make complaints from the Colombian countryside. Knowing and adjusting the security and privacy options on our social media accounts and other online services is one of the most important practices. It is essential to restrict, as much as possible, personal information that is public, available to anyone, on the platform. As Hobbes said in the famous manifesto ‘The Leviathan’ “knowledge is power.” We already have the obligation to provide a significant amount of information to States and companies without voluntarily offering information to anyone with internet access.
Today, millions of people around the world use ICT (information and communications technology) to communicate in their daily lives or demonstrate the reality of their territories through the denouncement of human rights violations. However, most of the time we use these technologies without even asking ourselves: How do they actually work? Who controls them? How are they financed?
Critical digital literacy is essential if want to be more aware and make more autonomous decisions regarding how we use technology as individuals and a society. The right to internet privacy, autonomy, and digital security must be within everyone’s reach. Thus, the work of organizations specialized in security and digital rights, which in Colombia include Karisma Foundation and Colnodo Foundation, is essential. At PBI we seek the promotion of digital security as part of the comprehensive protection of people who do so much to defend human rights in Colombia.
To close we want to share this important concept from the Sursiendo Collective in Mexico within their current campaign #Tecnoafecciones. If we seek a world where many worlds have a place and we must also fight for a fairer, freer, and more accessible technology for all people and communities.
“In a context where knowledge, technological reflection, and technology itself have been designed and constructed based on rationalist, western, masculine and white constructs, it is urgent to reconnect with technologies from emotional, care, and values based perspectives that hold people up, in order to create other possible futures, futures that are dignified and technologically diverse.”
PBI Colombia