Manuals with a gender perspective

This HowTo focuses on one hand in criteria we should take into account when drafting manuals about privacy and digital security from a gender perspective. On the other hand it aims at listing collectives and organisations working on the production of manuals and to list available ones.

Before producing a new manual some questions you should ask yourself

• Don't reinvent the wheelǃ Are you duplicating upstream work?
• If a similar manual is already availableː Who's behind it? Is it a long-term project or a one shot one? Can you continue or complement their work?
• Who's the public & what are the objectives ? What are their security & technical levels?
• Will your manual will be more about tools and how to configure those, or will it be more about threat modeling and/or behavioral processes?
• Under which license will you distribute it and which rights will you grant third parties (access, use, copy, remix, etc)?
• How will you maintain it? This encompass questions about frequency of updates needs depending of the tools and processes you will detail, and about processes you will run to engage your community in updating contents with you.
• How will you get feedback and peer review from readers? Will you be able to include all the feed back? (Some criteria will deal withː correctness, completeness, up to date). Remember to always indicate the last date the manual has been updated/released.
• How will you achieve or not translation & translatability of your manual? Which type of platforms will you use for achieving the translation? Will you achieve also cultural translation for instance?
• Will you provide further support to the readers such as a contact mail or a hotline?
• How will you ensure that your contents are ethical, inclusive and trans-queer-feminist "approved" ?

List of collectives and organisations achieving privacy and security manuals with a gender perspective

• Association for Progressive Communications - 'Take back the tech'

Linkː https://www.takebackthetech.net/

Licenseː Copyleft

Languageː English, French, Spanish

Take Back The Tech is a global campaign that connects the issue of violence against women and information and communications technology (ICT). It aims to raise awareness on the way violence against women is occurring on ICT platforms such as the Internet and mobile phones, and to call for people to use ICT in activism to end violence against women. It was initiated by the Association for Progressive Communications, Women's Networking Support Programme, in 2006. Since then, the campaign has been taken up and organised by individuals, collectives and non-governmental organizations in at least 24 countries. The platform includes various manuals and howtos such asː

- The "know more section" which list specific information regarding types of Violence Against Women such as Black mail, cyberstalking and hate speech.

- In 2015 they have released with Just Associates (JASS) Southern Africa and Women's Net the following manualː ICTs for Feminist Movement Building: Activist Toolkit

• Chayn.org - 'Stay safe'

Linkː http://chayn.co/tools/

Licenseː Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license

Languageː English

CHAYN is an open-source project that leverages technology to empower women against violence and oppression so they can live happier and healthier lives. Running solely on the passion of skilled volunteers, Chayn leverages technology to address the problems women face today. We are also a pro bono service to charities who work with vulnerable women.

- How to build your own domestic violence case without a lawyer is based on their experience from working with survivors of domestic abuse and their realisation that women can often not have access to legal aid/help because they are either very depressed, it’s too difficult for them to think their way around the legal jargon, they cannot physically approach a lawyer and increasingly, there is no legal aid or counsel is too expensive. Irrespective of whether someone wants to take legal action (criminal, divorce, child custody or asylum) – collecting and presenting evidence is critical. - In the next months they will release the manual 'How Someone Can Track You Online And Offline – And What You Can Do About It' that deals with issues faced by women that face stalking and invasion of privacy by abusers. The guide addresses how to avoid being tracked online and offline (http://chayn.co/staying-safe/).

• Donestech.net - 'Comic Lela'

Linkː http://donestech.net/

Licenseː Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike - No Commercial

Languageː Spanish, Catalan, English

- Comic Lela

- Kit de formacion Genero, Tic y Activismoː

- Gui didactica per a la formacion en perspectiva de genere i interculturalitat

• Electronic Frontier Foundation - 'Self Defense Guide'

Linkː https://ssd.eff.org/

Licenseː Creative Commons Attribution

Languageː English, Spanish, French, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Urdu

Modern technology has given those in power new abilities to eavesdrop and collect data on innocent people. Surveillance Self-Defense is EFF's guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices. The toolkit counts with playlists oriented at different profiles such as journalists, activists or LGTBQ youth that enables to contextualise knowledge and tools presented to the specific threats they could be facing.

• FemTechNet - 'Addressing anti-feminist violence online'

Linkː http://dmlcompetition.net/proposals/addressing-anti-feminist-violence-online/

Licenseː ?

Languageː English

This project is housed at the Arizona State University and is being currently developed by the network of feminist academics FemTechNet to support women that experiences harassment online to respond. The central focus of this proposal is the development of educational and informational resources that will enable educators and advocates to ensure that connected learning and engagement can proceed even in the face of hostility and harassment. Connected learning breaks down if feminists and women of all ages feel unsafe in digital spaces; we can’t end online harassment, but we can ensure that everyone has the tools necessary to maximize the safety of learners and their data.

FemTechNet has been a leader in online and distributed education with the highly successful Distributed Online Collaborative Course (DOCC). In addition to extensive presence within accredited institutions, the DOCC includes community courses and self-directed learners who access the resources, materials, tools, and communities online. With these experiences in virtual, blended, and face-to-face classrooms, FemTechNet is uniquely situated to be able to educate and serve online feminist learning communities. We have a well-developed content structure, including high-quality video dialogues, as well as a system for holding teach-ins and open online office hours. Our distributed model of online education also facilitates peer-to-peer connections, thereby strengthening and expanding the level of communal engagement possible with this project.

• Tactical technology collective - 'Zen and the art of making tech work for you'

Linkː https://gendersec.tacticaltech.org/wiki/index.php/Complete_manual

Licenseː Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Languageː English (future translations are previewed)

Tactical Technology Collective (in the framework of its one year project “Securing Online and Offline Freedoms for Women: Expression, Privacy and Digital Inclusion”) has released in September 2015 a manual tackling some privacy and security issues from a gender perspective. It is the result of a collaborative effort that has involved our growing community of women and trans* activists, human rights defenders and technologists. The manual was created in response to our community’s requests for ideas and guidance on topics they needed, but couldn’t find elsewhere and has been written and reviewed by over 20 women coming from 19 different countries. The current content focuses on two overlapping issues: First, how can we craft appropriate online presences (or a series of them) that strengthen our ability to communicate and work online safely?; Secondly, how can we collaboratively create safe online and offline spaces that enable our communities to share, collaborate, and communicate safely?

The manual grew out of the 2014 Gender and Technology Institute, organised by Tactical Technology Collective and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Until next January 2016, we hope to achieve a better understanding of the readers audience, their background and needs and also to gather through this extended community more feed back about the manual in order to get a better grasp of the dimensions that are missing and which are the other tools, processes, readings and cases studies that should be added. We hope to have it translated, edited and printed in 2016.