Visualizar18: Call for Projects

Would you like to propose a project for Visualizar'18: Personal Data? Fill in the form before 26 August. During the workshop that will run from 21 September to 5 October, we will develop a maximum of 6 proposals selected from the applications received in response to this open call for ideas, proposals or projects. Anyone may participate as long as they are prepared to allow interested contributors to participate in and contribute to the development of the project during the workshop. This implies that they shall be projects with free licenses. Proposals may be submitted individually or collectively. Each participant or team may submit as many proposals as they wish.

Important dates

• Publication of the call for proposals, 28 June.
• Deadline for submission of proposals, Sunday 26 August at 23:59 CEST.
• Announcement of selected proposals, Friday 31 August.
• Publication of the call for collaborators, Friday 31 August.
• Workshop: From Friday 21 September to Friday 5 October

Inspirational related projects

Visualizar

Some of Visualizar’s previous projects

BITS

Barcelona Initiative for Technological Sovereignty (BITS) seeks to stimulate a global debate on the changes taking place in the meaning of sovereignty, and to explore the ways in which the different types of sovereignty - that of citizens, cities, nations and regions - match with the global technologies. Paying special attention to the political effects of technological change, BITS explores how the emergence of technological platforms and data extractivism is transforming government, work, property and access to the basic means for survival such as water, food, housing and energy.

British Columbia First Nations’ Data Governance Initiative

British Columbia First Nations’ Data Governance Initiative (BCFNDGI) is an initiative to migrate to a model of development of welfare that is self-governing, community driven, and nation based. The autonomy to define community wellness and the right of First Nations communities to own, control, access, and possess information about their peoples are fundamental if they are to achieve self-determination and preserve and develop their culture. BCFNDGI is a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing complicated and long-standing socio-economic and cultural issues.

BrowserLeaks

Since time immemorial, it was believed that an IP address and HTTP cookies were the only reliable digital fingerprint to affect online privacy and the identity of the web browser. After some time, they sought other ways to increase their ability to track the activity of surfers as users in order to identify them and to separate the wheat from the chaff. As a result, they began to collect user-sensitive information. Currently, the situation is quite daunting. Modern browsers have not been made to ensure privacy on the web. The developers of anonymity networks such as TOR cannot edit the source code of browsers in order to mitigate this surveillance, which is why using TOR does not guarantee privacy. Browserleaks.com is a project about web browser fingerprinting. It provides a gallery of tools that allow you to check the security of your web browser and verify the information that you surrender when you surf the web.

Center for Information Technology Policy

The Center for Information Technology Policy of the University of Princeton.

EFF

EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an organisation set up to defend civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, it focuses on protecting user privacy, freedom of expression and innovation through legal proceedings, public policy analysis, grassroots activism and technology development.

Lines

• Biometrics
  

  Biometric systems are designed to identify people or to verify their identity using their physical characteristics or their intrinsic behaviour. These include digital fingerprints, the recognition of fingerprints, the palm of the hand or the face, voice, fingerprint or DNA, among others.

• Anonymity
  

  The anonymisation of online life refers to our being able to say things online that we do not want to be connected to our real identity, whether for political or economic reasons or due to harassment, or even a threat to our own life. It can be useful in multiple scenarios: people working against repressive governments in defence of human rights, or to create an anonymous identity so that children can explore Internet freely, or to rebuild lives that have been derailed by abuses in the past.

• Know your rights
  

  Know your rights is a campaign to allow US citizens to know their rights regarding their data that is stored in electronic devices.

• Mandatory Data Retention
  

  Mandatory Data Retention is a line of work of the EFF that warns about data retention by Internet service providers (ISPS), in other words, the companies that provide our connection to the Internet and those our data pass through during the provision of such services.

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  

  Rapid progress has been made in the field of automatic learning and neural networks during the course of the past decade, and certain issues that have arisen are of vital importance:

  • What happens with the data sets that are collected by private technology companies?
  • What rules, if any, should constrain the use of automatic learning methods when it comes to technologies for large scale surveillance carried out by intelligence agencies?
  • When algorithms, including automatic learning and artificial intelligence systems, make decisions that affect human lives, from the most mundane issues such as a different price to much more profound ones, what standards of transparency, openness and accountability should be applied to these decisions? If the decisions are wrong, who is legally responsible?
  • How do we prevent the biased results that automatic learning systems can produce, or other forms of profile creation?
• Border searches
  

  Boarder Searches warns about the practice of collecting data from social networks or electronic devices that may occur at borders - including airports - in the United States of America.

• CALEA
  

  The Communications Act refers to the CALEA Act (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, 1994) which required telephone companies to modify their network architecture to facilitate the legally permitted tapping of phone calls. In 2005, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) extended this Act to Internet service providers, (ISPS) and voice over IP (VoIP, Internet telephony) services. Years later, the FBI tried to extend it to any software that would allow online communication. Criticism stopped it, but it has come up again several times since then.

• Cell tracking
  

  Cell tracking warns about last-generation mobile phone location logs which make it possible to obtain certain data that otherwise could not be obtained without a court order.

• Do Not Track
  

  Do Not Track is a guide for users of online services. Social networking services, analytical companies or advertising companies tend to record their behaviour, but this guide helps such users keep their behaviour unrecorded.

• Encrypting the web
  

  Encrypt the Web warns about web services that do not use the HTTPS protocol that allows encrypted communications, which is why they have launched the HTTPS Everywhere campaign.

• Cyber Security Legislation
  

  Each year, the US Congress receives several draft bills on cyber security (Cyber Security Legislation). In 2014, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) reached Congress and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) reached the Senate. Their purpose was to give companies legal immunity to share more information between government and private companies.

Projects

• certbot
  

  certbot is a guide to automatically enable HTTPS on your web server by deploying Let's Encrypt certificates.

• Security Education Companion
  

  Security Education Companion is a set of free resources for those who teach digital security to their friends and neighbours.

• Surveillance Self Defence
  

  Surveillance Self-Defence offers advice, tools and manuals to improve online communication in 11 languages.

• Privacy Badger
  

  Privacy Badger is an extension for browsers that blocks advertisers and other third-party trackers, stopping them from knowing such things as where you surf to and what pages you visit on the web. If an advertiser seems to be tracking you through various websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks the advertiser from loading more content on your web browser. As far as the advertiser is concerned, it’s as if you had suddenly disappeared.

• Panopticlick
  

  Panopticlick warns about the status of your browser with respect to the ability of third parties to track your surfing activity without your consent. The tool analyses the browser, and its extensions, and displays the results in five points:

  • Does the browser block ad cookie tracking?
  • Does the browser block invisible trackers?
  • Are trackers that are included in the list of “acceptable advertising” blocked?
  • Does the browser block third parties that promise not to track?
  • Does the browser protect your digital fingerprint?
• HTTPS Everywhere
  

  HTTPS Everywhere is a browser extension, available for Firefox, Chrome and Opera, that encrypts your communications with web sites, allowing you to browse more securely. The project arose from the collaboration of EFF with the TOR project.

• Decoding 702
  

  A campaign against email decoding which the US government facilitated by passing Section 702.

FSFE

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology.

Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.

Email Self-Defence

Email Self-Defence warns about how indiscriminate surveillance violates our fundamental rights and endangers freedom of expression. As a result, it address email encryption.

Firefox extensions

Stop fingerprinting

Stop Fingerprinting avoids the recording of our device’s fingerprint.

Decode

Decode Project offers tools that put people in control of the personal data they want to retain or share for the common good.

Tor

Tor is a free software and an open network that helps you to defend yourself against Internet traffic analysis, a form of cyber surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential professional activities and relationships, and status security. Its most important projects include:

Tor Browser

Tor browser is Tor for web browsers.

OONI

Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software tool, a global warning network to detect censorship, surveillance and manipulation on the Internet. OONI scans TCP, DNS, HTTP and TLS connections to warn of any manipulation. Certain tests work by asking for data about insecure connections and comparing them against known values. Others seek any DNS alterations, word filtering, transparent gateways or website blocking lists.

Orbot

Orbot is Tor for Android, a proxy that allows other apps to use Internet in a more secure way. Orbot uses Tor to encrypt Internet traffic through computers around the world.

Tails

Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) is an operating system that can run on any computer and can be booted from a USB or a DVD. Its objective is to preserve your privacy and anonymity in such a way that:

• You can use the Internet anonymously and thereby avoid censorship.
• All of the Internet connections are directed to the Tor network.
• It does not leave any trace in the computer unless you ask it explicitly to do so.
• It uses cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging.

The Guardian Project

The Guardian Project creates easy-to-use secure applications, opensource software libraries and mobile devices that anyone who wants to protect their communications and personal data from intrusion, interception and monitoring can use. Some of their apps are:

ObscuraCam

ObscuraCam is a Secure smart camera, an app for taking videos and images that helps to keep certain information contained in such content private.

Pixelknot

Pixelknot allows to send hidden Messages. It is an Android application that allows users to hide short text messages in images and share them over trusted channels. Only someone with a password can see the message.

Map C

Map C: mapping mobile phone permissions was developed during the residency of Vladan Joeler (Share Lab) in Hangar (11-12/2016) in collaboration with the Critical Interface Politics research group led by Joana Moll and Mateo Zappa, whose goal was to map some of the complex structures of the Internet (Map A: tracerouting ISPs, Map B: Guifi.net). In this case the permissions of mobile phone applications are shown during installation to demonstrate why it is important to accept or not to accept the terms of service and privacy or other technical documents of the applications that normally require more data than is necessary to operate, given that such personal data - content and metadata - have become a tradable currency. They warn that the financial value of personal data may reach one billion euros in 2020.

Internet Defence League

Internet Defence League is an initiative to combine the struggles against the threats to net neutrality, from SOPA/PIPA to other more current ones. It offers banners so you can show your support.

Fight for the future

Fight for the Future is devoted to protecting and expanding many campaigns that fight for the transformative power of the Internet.

MyData

MyData is a project that combines an alternative vision of personal data with a guide to technical principles for people who want to have more control over the trail left by their day-to-day activities when using third-party online services. Their aim is that anyone can have an easy way to see where their personal data end up, who can use them and how to change those conditions at any given time.

Tactical Tech

Tactical Tech is a non-profit organisation that focuses on the impact that online electronic services have on civil liberties, rights and autonomy. For the past 15 years they have been putting forward practical solutions for a global network of activists, technology enthusiasts and concerned citizens. They have shared their results with millions of people all over the world, during the research, workshops, training sessions, events or exhibitions that they have organised. They strive to increase awareness of privacy issues while at the same time offering tools to protect the security of communications and to ensure that citizen movements can turn information into action. In May 2014 they were in Medialab-Prado as guests of the Data Journalism Working Group, presenting the documentary Exposing the Invisible and a number of data visualisation tools such as Security in a Box or Drawing by Numbers.

MyShadow

Tactical Tech's Me and My Shadow project helps you control your data traces, see how you're being tracked, and learn more about the data industry.

Decrypting Encryption

Decrypting Encryption, a project from 2015

Ononymous

Ononymous.org, materials on online protection. features projects by ourselves as well as by others working in the field, including Front Line Defenders, EFF, Open Data City, The Tor Project, The Centre for Investigative Journalism and Access Now. We use these project a lot at workshops, trainings and presentations, and thought it would be useful to bring them together on a single page; if you go to the site and think we should add something, please let us know. We are working on adding other languages as well! This website was designed and built by Tactical Tech, and supported by LevelUp.

Security in a Box

Security in a Box was created be Tactical Tech y Front Line Defenders in 2009 to address the digital security and privacy needs of those who defend human rights.

US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

The US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network is committed to data sovereignty at the tribal, state, national and international levels. The headquarters of the Native Nations Institute, NNI, is in the Center for Public Policy Studies at the University of Arizona. The NNI offers administrative support and research resources, coordination with the activities of the governing council, an email list, etc.

Re-log

Re-log is a project that used their connection to the WiFi network to show how visitors to re: publica 2013 moved.

Data visualisation

• https://www.submarinecablemap.com

Share Labs

Share Labs is a laboratory that carries out research on data based on research on their own data, that is to say, on the collection, analysis and visualisation of data from open data initiatives or from official documents through open tools.

World Privacy Forum

The World Privacy Forum is a research group that focuses on the frontiers between privacy and technology.

Women's Bodies on Digital Battlefields

Women's Bodies on Digital Battlefields is an 18-month research into the risks faced and attacks suffered by activists for the right to decide, that shows how their activism is intertwined with personal networks of support and solidarity, and how their needs for visibility balance with the defence of their right to privacy in Latin America and in the Caribbean.

Instructions for submitting proposals

The project summary must be submitted in Spanish and in English. In order to help collaborators participate in your project, it would really help if you attached a very short and simple explanatory video (2/3 minutes).

Workshop calendar

Friday 21, Opening day, Auditorium (AUD)

• 10-10.30am, Welcome to Visualizar18
• 10-11am, Presentation of Visualizar18
• 11-11.30am, Break
• Midday-1pm, Presentation of projects.
• 1-2pm, presentation of collaborators and formation of teams
• 2-3.30pm, Break
• 3.30-5.30pm, Workshop methodology: Git, visualisation tools, maps.
• 5.30-8.30pm, Talks by invited guests.

Saturday 22, LAB1

• 11am-2pm, Team work
• 2-3.30pm, Lunch
• 3.30-6pm, Team work
• 6-6.30pm, Break
• 6.30-8.30, Whatever comes up.

Sunday 23, Rest

Monday 24-Friday 28, LAB1

• 10am-2pm, Team work
• 2-3.30pm, Lunch
• 3.30-6pm, Team work
• 6-6.30pm, Break

Friday 28, AUD

• 6.30-8.30, Public presentation of the project developed along the Data Journalism Workshop #SDGData

Saturday 29, LAB1

• 11am-2pm, Team work
• 2-3.30pm, Lunch
• 3.30-6pm, Team work
• 6-6.30pm, Break
• 6.30-8.30, Whatever comes up.

Monday 1-Thursday 4, LAB1

• 10am-2pm, Team work
• 2-3.30pm, Lunch
• 3.30-6pm, Team work
• 6-6.30pm, Break
• 6.30-8.30, Whatever comes up.

Friday 5, Closing day, Auditorium (AUD)

• 10am-2pm, Team work
• 2-3.30pm, Lunch
• 3.30-6pm, Team work
• 6-6.30pm, Break
• 6.30-8.30pm, Presentation of projects.

Commitments of the selected projects

The selected individuals or collectives undertake to:

• Attend the workshop every day.
• Complete and document the proposed projects in an appropriate manner.
• Accept and encourage the participation of interested persons.
• Provide basic information on the projects: both the process and the results must be recorded on a Git repository.
• Store the project materials in the repository provided, with free licenses that allow the project to be reused or adapted.
• Include in the project credits the participation of every team member and their development within the framework of the workshop.

Notes

• The Organisation will provide support to achieve all the above commitments.
• The organisation encourages and supports the use of free programs for the development of the projects.
• Completed projects will be publicly exhibited in Medialab-Prado. Once the exhibition has ended, the participants undertake to remove their materials within a maximum of 15 days. If they do not do so by that deadline, Medialab-Prado reserves the right to dispose of them as it sees fit.

Resolution. Criteria for the assessment of the projects

Selection Committee

The team of Visualizar’18: Datos Personales.

Assessment criteria

• Relevance to the general objectives and the theme of the call.
• Project quality.
• Originality, innovation or experimental nature.
• Clarity of the proposal and adaptation to the methodology and the time frame of the workshop. The goal is to have a prototype at the end of the workshop. Therefore, if it were to form part of a project with other phases, you must specify in the proposal the parts of the project that may and those that may not be prototyped within that time frame.
• Concurrence of a variety of fields of knowledge.
• Use of tools and free licenses.
• It should be of benefit to the community.
• Value will be placed on a diversity of approaches and backgrounds, and on their integration within all the proposals that are to be selected.

Accommodation and travel

Accommodation will be provided throughout the workshop on request and for a limited number of participants who reside outside Madrid. Travel expenses of one person for each of the selected projects will also be covered.

Workshop language

The workshop will be held in English and in Spanish without any formal translation, depending on the nationality of or language spoken by the workshop participants.

Project dissemination and continuity

The developed works will be presented in public by the work teams on the last day of the workshop, 5 October. Once the workshop has ended, a public exhibition will be organised and promoted by Medialab-Prado.

Collaborating entities

This call is also an invitation to organisations that work with data as the primary raw material of their activity in the thematic proposal. We invite such organisations to provide data sets and to propose challenges for their development. Proposals will be added during the call for projects.

Contact

• Visualizar [at] medialab-prado.es
• @datalabx on Twitter.

Authorship and intellectual property

The activity will be recorded in video format with audio and disseminated through the Medialab-Prado (MLP) web. Participation in the activity will authorise MLP to determine, reproduce, distribute and publicly communicate the image rights of participants and attendees. Recorded video and audio material may be disseminated among the general public by any means and, in particular, over the Internet, and they grant the right of conversion in order to adapt the work to the support on which it may be loaded, or its preservation. If part of the video and audio is to be communicated to the public, MLP will make every effort not to distort the recorded content. MLP provides public access to such recorded material free of charge. Works are published under a licence for use that entitles any user to reproduce them free of charge and disseminate them by any means. When publishing a work, MLP will publish a link to the licence referred to above, so that users are aware of the terms and conditions thereof. The assignment shall be deemed to have been granted for the maximum time permitted by law and shall be worldwide. Authors of lectures shall expressly sign an authorisation allowing MLP to use their image rights and assigning the intellectual property of the lecture in accordance with the purpose of the institution, which is the dissemination of free culture. To take part in this activity, participants in the call whose projects (texts, photos, or videos) are selected, must license the works under a license that allows MLP to publish them in any physical or digital format with the maximum legally permitted territorial and temporal scope, allowing them to be converted to facilitate the dissemination or distribution of the works. Once the works have been selected and within the course of the activity, the author is required to allow any other participants in the convened activity to use their work as a basis for other derivative works. In addition, the participant must keep their code in a repository that can be accessed by the public (for example, Github.com) and it must be licensed under a free license that allows it to be reused. Materials provided by MLP will remain the property of this institution even though they may have been inseparably mixed with materials provided by the participant. Participants must remove objects provided and not used within a maximum period of 15 days from the end of the activity. If they do not do so by that deadline, MLP reserves the right to dispose of them as it sees fit. Participation in this call implies acceptance of all its bases and content.