An Activist’s Guide to Online Privacy and Safety. By CyberGhost.
The fight for all causes has become fully digital, and this means everything you do online — from organizing rallies or protests, sharing campaign materials, or just expressing your opinion — could now be monitored or even be used against you by those who oppose your cause. …
As an activist, you’re likely attracting attention in the name of your cause. This means you could often land yourself on the radar of government officials or law enforcement agencies — and you might also be monitored by your opponents, rival groups, and informants.
With surveillance technology more widely available, such bad-faith actors can easily gain a complete picture of your online and offline activities. In other words, what you do online can have serious real-world implications.
Belarusian example:
Take the rather extreme case of Roman Protasevich — the exiled, Belarusian activist — who used Telegram to coordinate protests in opposition of the Belarus government in 2020 and 2021. In May 2021, Protasevich’s Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced by a Belarusian fighter jet to divert and land in Minsk, Belarus. Protasevich was arrested upon landing.
The following day he appeared on Belarusian state TV confessing to “organizing mass unrest”. He had marks on his body, leading to the widespread belief that Protasevich had been tortured. He has since been confined to house arrest in Belarus.
Belarusian authorities were able to track Portasevich through his online presence, follow his travels, and then pursue his arrest. The lesson is: if you post something on social media that is critical of those in power, you’re likely being noticed by more than just your followers. …
Many governments do it, apparently:
This is not limited to countries with authoritarian regimes, however. Thanks to Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks, we’ve learned the extent to which governments of all types circumvent privacy protection laws to monitor their citizens’ online activity. Worryingly, you don’t have to have done anything wrong to be the subject of targeted surveillance. …
Governments in at least 25 countries have implemented large-scale surveillance programs, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been an unprecedented increase in digital surveillance, including mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, tracking of medical records, and CCTV networks with facial recognition. …
Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) knows a lot about you:
Your ISP can collect enough personal data on you to link your various activism activities, possibly helping authorities to build an incriminating case against you. ISPs claim they don’t send your data to third parties, but they can be compelled to hand over your data to law enforcement and government agencies.
In Australia, for example, ISPs have been ordered to provide federal police with user browsing history. Some of that data is stored for up to two years.
To combat the intrusiveness of ISPs, your best bet is to consider investing in a trustworthy VPN (Virtual Private Network). A VPN will help anonymize your internet activity and provide you with a private, secure connection when you go online. VPNs are quite easy to set up and use multiple layers of protection …
If you live in a country with strict online censorship, you’re probably unable to access certain news websites, apps, or social media. A robust VPN allows you to connect to servers in countries where those sites and apps aren’t subject to censorship.
By changing your digital location, you can access geographically restricted content, access unbiased resources, and even organize your activism online. …
Tor (The Onion Router) is a great way for activists to get online securely and anonymously. When you’re connected to the Tor network, none of your internet activity or data can be traced back to you because it’s all encrypted several times.
We recommend using a VPN and Tor together for maximum privacy and protection. You should connect to a VPN first and then to Tor (VPN over Tor). …
Using public Wi-Fi is risky – the traffic that flows through an open Wi-Fi network is usually unencrypted, meaning it’s an easy target for online snoops. …
Your browser:
Your standard web browser routinely collects and retains information about your connection and internet activity. The information your browser shares with the websites … may seem trivial, but the combined data creates a unique digital fingerprint that websites use to identify you and track you online.
Search engines:
Google and other search engines… record a vast amount of data to create targeted ads and personalize your web browsing. …
Most search engines can be compelled by law enforcement or government agencies to hand over your search and browsing data
We know that Google is the go-to search engine for most people. But it’s one of the worst when it comes to tracking and mining user data.
Lots more info at the link.
By the way, Google started downranking the Wentworth Report (that is, pushing it way down the search results that Google displays) a few days after the 2020 US election, resulting in a 99% drop in traffic coming from Google. The bulk of our traffic from search engines now comes from DuckDuckGo.
