Take Back Tech—Understanding How Surveillance Culture Impacts Advocacy

On April 17, Mijente and Media Justice hosted activists, advocates, academics, artists, and tech workers from across the country in Atlanta, Georgia, at Take Back Tech to organize against the misuse of technology. The Open Technology Institute, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and Amplify Georgia Collaborative co-hosted a capacity building workshop, “From Passwords to Policies: A Hands-On Digital Safety Workshop for Advocacy Orgs,” for grassroot organizations who want to improve their digital safety and privacy practices.

Community organizers and activists face an ever-growing regime of data extraction from our devices, web activity, and app use. This data can be misused, exposed, and weaponized. For those working on the ground to advocate for communities and individuals that are marginalized, mitigating existing digital threats can help protect activists and organizers as well as the communities they serve.

We presented our co-created digital safety zine, workshopped a privacy and security self-assessment with advocacy organizations, and shared best practices and realistic countermeasures based on Amplify Georgia’s actions as a reproductive justice collaborative of nine organizations.

Amplify Georgia shared how they are integrating digital safety into organizational practices. Their work is informed by their Decrim Action Team, a community-led campaign advocating for anti-surveillance laws in local counties and cities across Georgia. Amplify highlighted how the threat of digital surveillance is very real in the state. Currently, Atlanta sits as the most surveilled city in America— having an estimated 124 cameras per 1,000 people. It is also where Flock is headquartered; Flock is an automated license plate reader company that’s been used by law enforcement for immigration enforcement and misused to search for a person believed to have self-administered an abortion. In December 2025, a woman in Georgia was charged with murder after she was hospitalized due to complications from using misoprostol to self-administer an abortion. If prosecuted, it could set a larger precedent for how the state will criminalize people seeking reproductive healthcare after Georgia’s 2019 strict ban on abortions post six weeks.

Under this hostile landscape, Amplify Georgia shared how they’ve navigated limited resources and capacity to protect the organization’s data and staff as well as the community members it serves. Alongside other advocacy organizations at the event, Amplify discussed traversing associated tradeoffs and challenges of implementing digital safety practices across a team’s work.

Sharing Resources and How to DIY More

Over the course of the conference, we handed out over 50 zines and spoke with countless organizers working to make their communities safer and more equitable.

Check Out the Zine

During our workshop, to help activists and organizations assess their own capacity and needs, we shared a checklist that reflects OTI’s work with the organizations in the NIRH-led Abortion Data Lab to ensure a grounded approach to improving digital safety.

See the Checklist

We also shared with workshop attendees the best privacy practices we identified with the lab participants’ input and discussed real-world examples of why protecting data is important:

• Use Encryption→ In 2023, Facebook messages were used to prosecute a mother for helping her teenage daughter with a self-administered abortion. The incident highlights the vulnerability of online messages and the need to adopt secure, end-to-end encrypted messaging.
• Secure Accounts →In January 2026, a warrant on the home of a Washington Post reporter included explicit authorization for authorities to forcibly unlock devices using fingerprint and facial biometrics. Using multiple, complex passwords with two- or multi-factor authentication protects data from hackers and from search and seizure. 

• Curate Social Media → In 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is subpoenaing tech companies in an attempt to identify individuals with anti-ICE sentiments. Earlier in September 2025, the Department of Justice released a memo that seemed to broaden the agency’s definition of domestic terrorism to target protestors and civil society organizations that express anti-immigration enforcement sentiments. Social media surveillance has also been used in the past to identify Black Lives Matter protesters. Navigating this new social media surveillance environment requires being thoughtful about what is shared online.  

• Prioritize Data Minimization → In 2023, the Veritas Society used cell phone location data from a data broker to target those in the vicinity of 600 Planned Parenthood locations across 48 states with abortion misinformation. Taking action to reduce the amount of data collected through apps, web activity, and devices is key not only for individuals but also is a form of community care. At a larger level, advocating for increased data broker regulation can help protect communities not only from corporate data abuse but from law enforcement misuse. The ability to buy data from databrokers presents a loophole for law enforcement to access information normally protected by Fourth Amendment and existing privacy protections.

Our workshop also walked participants through creating their own zine. Activist artist and NIRH’s Multi-Media Content Creator Sanna Legan spoke about the power of art as a collective organizing tool, explaining the art of zine-making through three simple steps: make a clear statement, explain how it impacts audiences with three key takeaways, and use a call to action to mobilize readers. By combining visually appealing graphics with short, easily digestible text, zines are designed to be accessible and easily shareable by a wide range of audiences.

Use Our Zine Template