With new revelations surrounding the hacking of Amazon founder, and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos’ phone, the growing pervasiveness of mobile hacking and surveillance tools has won national attention. This high profile case spotlights a threat that has been a major concern in the human rights realm for years.
2019 was a year of many milestones for Benetech. In our work across education, poverty alleviation, and human rights, our community of users, partners, employees, and supporters have shared their perspectives on the power of software for social good. Below are our top five blogs of 2019 that highlight these impactful stories.
Shabnam Mojtahedi is a lawyer focused on rule of law and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. At Benetech, she is leading efforts to apply artificial intelligence to help civil society organizations pursue justice and accountability in Syria and beyond. In this illuminating Q&A, Shabnam discusses her current work and shares her perspective on the complicated intersection of technology and human rights.
Learning best practices in any profession can take years, but for human rights defenders, following them can have life or death consequences.
For the last five years, I’ve traveled around the world training human rights defenders to use technology to more securely collect, store, and share sensitive data. The individuals and groups I work with face serious and complex digital threats that are difficult to detect. Some are aware of such threats and have taken precautions, while others are just gaining awareness and starting their search for solutions. To get a sense of where a specific audience fits on this spectrum, I often introduce the digital threat conversation by asking the room: “Show of hands: who here has a sticker covering their webcam?”
