Activists host privacy workshops and parties to help people reduce reliance on big tech

Imani Thompson arrived at Wonderville Bar in Brooklyn looking ready for a DJ set, a drink or a night out with friends. But Thompson was also there as a cybersecurity organizer leading the evening’s event.

Thompson hosted the gathering, called Break Up With Google, with the New York City-based tech organizing coalition Cypurr Collective. The event was designed to help attendees understand how to reduce their exposure to surveillance through major technology services. Thompson said it was also important for people to enjoy themselves while learning, which is why DJs played late into the night.

“People need a familiar environment to deal with a little friction,” Thompson said. “Learning to script a little at your local bar is less fight-or-flight-inducing than doing [it] in an environment that feels like school.”

Thompson, 26, has hosted many such events, which she describes as “cybersecurity disguised as a party”. Wine nights with friends, gatherings at a local lesbian bar and the February event were all aimed at people who want to divest from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple. At these gatherings, participants might learn how to remove personal data from search engines or enable more advanced privacy settings on their phones.

Similar workshops, conferences and parties are emerging across the US, including in Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Pittsburgh. Activists are teaching communities how to regain control over their digital lives by using more secure and transparent platforms or by building their own tools.

A YouGov poll conducted in December found that 61% of Americans are concerned about their digital security and consider limiting access to personal data very important. But only 33% said they were actively doing something about it. Privacy-focused conferences, workshops and meetups are intended to give people support and agency to protect that information without abandoning the technology that underpins modern life.

“When it comes to digital security, the idea is not ‘I have nothing to hide’,” Thompson said, “but rather ‘I have something to protect’.”

The services people rely on to message friends, shop or navigate a new city may make life easier and more connected, but they also expose users to extensive data collection. Luc Rocher, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, cited research from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties saying that the data technology companies collect from online activity “allows them to infer precise details such as who has ‘suffered sexual violence’, who is on ‘bail bond’ or who has very ‘low net worth’”.

That information is broadcast to thousands of companies worldwide through real-time bidding auctions, which allow companies to bid for the chance to show a user a targeted ad. According to the ICCL, it is like having a data breach 747 times a day.

The article also points to concerns about surveillance by the US government. Agencies have used monitoring programs for years, including the National Security Agency’s broad collection of Americans’ telecommunications data. In 2023, the FBI was found to have exceeded its authority in spying on protesters affiliated with the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

More recently, Congress increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget to $85bn, with some of that money going to contracts with Palantir, the AI company created to serve intelligence agencies, and the Israeli spyware company Paragon. Reports from protesters and journalists indicate that the Department of Homeland Security is heavily surveilling protests in Minnesota, Los Angeles and elsewhere, though the methods being used remain unclear. FBI director Kash Patel also recently said in a congressional hearing that the bureau is buying Americans’ data from online brokers.

The article argues that technology companies also exercise enormous power over how Americans communicate, shop and even use household devices. It says corporations such as Meta and OpenAI, which once promised connection, convenience and free expression, now extract users’ attention and data in ways that enrich owners and erode democratic freedoms.

“Generally speaking, we’re living under the most sophisticated surveillance apparatus in all of human history,” said Daly Barnett, a senior researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “While the reach and sophistication of these surveillance apparatuses escalate, so too are authoritarian movements. It makes sense [that] those two things would escalate at the same time, but I think people are recognizing those two trends and trying to figure out what to do about it.”

Fairouz, who works with Resist Tech Monopolies in Seattle and whose full name is being withheld for privacy reasons, told the Guardian that the volunteer group has seen a sharp increase in interest. Resist Tech Monopolies hosts a book club, movie night, open office hours and a regular “discover tech” event introducing community members to technology concepts.

“We had to pause onboarding because our interest form has been growing faster than what we can keep up with,” they said. “We see interest from both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy people; most notably we see interest from political and grassroots groups that want to train their members [or] community.”

Resist Tech Monopolies is part of Co-op Cloud, an international tech federation made up of organizations committed to building and sharing libre software. Such tools can be used and distributed freely, including alternatives such as LibreOffice and the Apache web server. The federation’s principles are transparency, democratic development and sustainability.

On a smaller scale, systems that rely less on major technology companies can both protect users from surveillance and create opportunities to collaborate on democratically designed and communally maintained tools. The article says people do not need programming knowledge to contribute to libre or open-source projects; artists, teachers, writers, ethicists and others can also take part.

At a recent workshop run through the Los Angeles-based digital archive space TAPE, one participant created a voicemail exporter for iPhone voice messages. The tool allows users to download voicemail messages to a laptop or hard drive instead of keeping them on a phone, in an effort to reduce the risk of loss, surveillance or degradation.

“Apple uses third-party Google and Amazon datacenters to store user data,” said Jackie Forsyte, an archivist at TAPE who co-led the workshop. “When data is out of your hands [and] into the hands of a corporation, you lose autonomy, period. Let alone the risks if a corporation bends to the political will of an administration or police agency, it puts sensitive data at risk.”

A future free of powerful technology monopolies may not be imminent. Thompson, TAPE and other organizers still use Instagram to advertise events and share information. But the article points to easy-to-use free or inexpensive tools, such as the Privacy Badger browser extension and ProtonMail, that can help reduce the risks associated with widespread data collection and surveillance.

Thompson said she plans to continue organizing de-Googling parties. “I just want people to feel empowered in general in their relationships to technology,” she said. “I’m finding when people dip their toes, they get really excited and creative.”