Cybersecurity at the edge: Researching the privacy and security dimensions of indigenous cyberactivism in Ecuador

Nowadays, most indigenous communities in Ecuador use information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter to support protests for their rights, livelihoods, and culture. However, this exacerbates privacy and security risks for these cyberactivists, who become targets of the Ecuadorian state through cyberattacks, internet censorship and increased surveillance. A prominent example that caused international outrage was in 2019, when the government attempted to legalise internet shutdowns. Privacy-enhancing-tools (PETs) that could protect these indigenous groups are not attuned to their needs and ontologies, as they are usually developed with mainstream Western audiences in mind. Therefore, this research will explore how PETs are appropriated or reconfigured to support indigenous cyberactivism in Ecuador. I will conduct 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ecuador with indigenous protesters, non-governmental organisations, and cyber-policy makers. The outcome of this work will be a set of recommendations for the design of PETs that are tailored to the needs of indigenous protesters and also transferable to marginalised communities in other parts of the world, as well as a contribution to the under-researched field of privacy and cybersecurity experiences in Latin America.