digital security

Derechos Digitales maps cases involving the abusive use of cybercrime regulation to silence and criminalise women and LGBTQIA+ people worldwide. The results are troubling and warn of the inherent danger of imposing international standards without considering national contexts or building human rights safeguards, particularly for historically marginalised groups.

This edition focuses on the human dimension of cybersecurity. To do this, the editors asked themselves how cybersecurity policies developed from the centres of political, economic and epistemological power affect those at the margins; and how they can think about cybersecurity from a feminist perspective. The editors set out to find specific and contextualised examples of how cybersecurity…

The international forensic community still fails to develop tools and techniques to address women’s needs. Carl, from Marialab, explores how feminist activists in Brazil are working on frameworks for teaching and applying computer forensics in cases of gender-based violence online.

Our perspectives and conditions of access, use and development of technologies are deeply rooted in the ways patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism are embedded in our daily lives. This article maps pioneering feminist infrastructure experiences that allow us to explore new horizons of political action.

Nicaraguas’ Cybercrime Special Law, passed under the argument of being the first national instrument to protect women’s and children’s integrity online, is being enforced to silence dissenting voices. This article illustrates how the Ortega-Murillo regime has instrumentalised this bill to curtail freedom of expression, criminalise human rights defenders and silence feminist activists in the…

Despite passing under the guise of fighting sex trafficking, the US-based bills FOSTA/SESTA criminalised sex workers and left them fewer tools to work and protect themselves. Cypher Sex describes the challenges of writing digital self-defence guides with protection strategies that could be applied to this legal scenario.

Like any other technical domain, cybersecurity has always been confined to senior officials and private sector specialists. Feminists, however, have not only claimed their right to participate in decision-making structures in this field but have made central contributions to the notion of security, bringing holistic and intersectional approaches. In this edition of GenderIT, editors focus on…

The FTX: Safety Reboot is a training curriculum made up of several modules for trainers who work with women’s rights and sexual rights activists to use the internet safely, creatively and strategically.

This personal essay by Lara Mansour narrates the experience of being gay in a conservative country like Egypt, and the anxieties of first-ever digital sexual encounter.