Privacy

Ten years ago, Nonprofit AF , in Weaponized data: How the obsession with data has been hurting marginalized communities, warned that nonprofits’ data obsession could dehumanise and harm marginalised communities—reducing lived experiences to reductive metrics, ignoring power dynamics, and prioritising funder dashboards. Now it’s 2025. Technology, AI, data regulation, and global politics have transformed—but many threats have only intensified. What changed? What has improved Stronger legal guardrails (sometimes) Since GDPR (2018), Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted data protections that at least nominally strengthen consent and individual’s rights. Data-sharing rules and transparency mandates force nonprofits to be somewhat more accountable. ...

Zero-knowledge proofs are a rare and beautiful thing: deeply technical, yet profoundly human. They offer a way to engage with digital systems without handing over your soul. Like a well-trained butler, they keep your secrets while getting things done. In an age where over-sharing has become the default, they offer something radical: the power to prove yourself, without losing yourself. The pub test: The colour-blind friend experiment Picture the scene: you are at the pub with your colour-blind friend Nicole. On the table are two pool balls – one brilliant blue, the other an unapologetically yellow sunshine hue. To Nicole, they look exactly the same. She thinks you are pulling her leg. Telling her to “just trust you” will not help, and simply pointing out which is which feels like cheating. ...

This guide walks you through setting up multilingual search in Hugo (v0.147.3) using the Docsy theme, without relying on any CDNs. No dodgy remote JS includes, no API keys, no Algolia. Just good old-fashioned files, language-specific index.json, and some actual control over what your search does. This is based on a working implementation that uses Lunr.js and works entirely offline — useful for privacy-focused or air-gapped deployments. It also assumes you’re not here for quick hacks but for a robust, Hugo-friendly setup. ...

Behind the rise of mass surveillance, predictive policing, and the steady erosion of privacy stands an unlikely enabler: Accenture, the world’s largest consultancy firm (because nothing says “trustworthy” like emerging from the ashes of Enron’s auditors). The Accenture Files—a major new investigation by the Progressive International, Expose Accenture, and the Movement Research Unit—exposes how this corporate giant has embedded itself at the heart of security states worldwide. Through confidential documents and insider testimony, the report reveals Accenture’s pivotal role in building the infrastructure of repression, from biometric databases tracking billions to algorithms that criminalise marginalised communities before they’ve even had their morning coffee. ...

You’d think something called the General Data Protection Regulation might actually protect data. You’d be wrong. Along with its elder cousin, the ICCPR, GDPR was hailed as the Great Hope™—a beacon of digital dignity in a world run by surveillance capitalists. But instead of taming the beast, it handed it a clipboard and told it to tick some boxes. The GDPR officially kicked in at the stroke of midnight on 25 May 2018, like some sort of data privacy Cinderella. It was meant to give users the sacred gift of choice—to say yes or no to having their personal lives vacuumed up, analysed, monetised, and passed around like cheap party favours. What we actually got was an avalanche of “consent” banners and passive-aggressive pop-ups saying: “Agree or get lost.” ...

The internet, that magical realm where nothing is free, least of all you. Every click, scroll, and half-hearted Google search fuels an invisible economy built on surveillance capitalism, where your digital footprints are harvested, packaged, and sold to the highest bidder. The Orwellian reality of online tracking George Orwell’s *1984* warned of a world where you could never know if you were being watched. Joke’s on him—today, we know we’re watched constantly, and we still click “Accept All Cookies.” ...

Mobile apps are those delightful little spies we willingly invite into our pockets. Sure, they promise convenience, entertainment, or maybe just a way to kill time, but their real business model? Hoovering up your data like a Roomba on steroids. The Great Permission Heist Terms of Service & Privacy Policies are not agreements—they’re hostage notes written in legalese. The average Privacy Policy is 2,518 words long (because transparency is best served as an unreadable wall of text). Reading all the policies for your installed apps would take 16 hours—or roughly the time it takes to regret your life choices. “Free” apps are the worst offenders. They’re not free—you’re just paying in personal data instead of cash. Pre-installed apps are the ultimate betrayal. Your carrier forces them on you (looking at you, Serbian media apps), and you can’t even delete them. Net neutrality? More like net absurdity. “But why do they need all these permissions?” Great question! Here’s what your apps really do with them: ...

The GDPR—Europe’s magnum opus of regulatory overreach, drafted by people who clearly believe consent forms are the pinnacle of human interaction. Born from the ashes of the 1995 Data Protection Directive (which, admittedly, was about as fit for the digital age as a fax machine), this sweeping reform was supposed to “strengthen privacy rights” and “boost Europe’s digital economy.” Instead, it gifted us with pop-up hell, corporate panic attacks, and a cottage industry of “GDPR consultants” who’ve never met a compliance checkbox they didn’t adore. ...