Interview with the Tactical Technology Collective on Privacy and Surveillance

For all those of you who haven’t heard of the Tactical Technology Collective, it’s a Berlin and Bangalore-based non-profit organisation which aims to advance the skills, tools and techniques of rights advocates, empowering them to use information and communications to help marginalised communities understand and effect progressive social, environmental and political change.

Tactical Tech’s Privacy & Expression programme builds the digital security awareness and capacity of human rights defenders, independent journalists, anti-corruption advocates and activists. The programme’s activities range from awareness-raising comic films aimed at audiences new to digital security issues, to direct training and materials for high-risk defenders working in some of the world’s most repressive environments.

Anne Roth works with Tactical Tech on the Privacy & Expression programme as a researcher and editor. Anne holds a degree in political science from the Free University of Berlin. She cofounded one of the first interactive media activist websites, Indymedia, in Germany in 2001 and has been involved with media activism and various forms of activist online media ever since. She has worked as a web editor and translator in the past. Since 2007 she has written a blog that covers privacy, surveillance, media, net politics and feminist issues.

The Centre for Internet and Society interviewed Anne Roth on the following questions:

1. How do you define privacy?

2. Can privacy and freedom of expression co-exist? Why/ Why not?

3. What is the balance between Internet freedom and surveillance?

4. According to research, most people worldwide care about their online privacy – yet they give up most of it through the use of social networking sites and other online services. Why, in your opinion, does this occur and what are the potential implications?

5. Should people have the right to give up their right to privacy? Why/ Why not?

6. What implications on human rights can mass surveillance potentially have?

7. “I’m not a terrorist and I have nothing to hide…and thus surveillance can’t affect me personally”. Please comment.

8. Do we have Internet freedom?

VIDEO