We invite you to take a deeper dive into how you’re showing up online at a free, hands-on workshop.
View the Event Schedule to sign up for a workshop, tour or session.
Making Choices in Your Digital Life
Whatsapp, Gmail, Google Search – we use these apps and tools because everyone else does, and because… what else is there? This workshop will enable you to think more critically about the tools you use, what questions you should ask, and why the answers matter. You will also be introduced to some alternative chat apps, email, and search tools that allow you more control of your own data.
De-Googlize Your Life
“One account. All of Google,” is Google’s tagline. But what does this mean for those of us who use Google search, Google Docs, Gmail, and other Google services? What information are we handing over to one company? Are we comfortable with a blue print of our lives being stored in one location… and why might we want to ‘diversify’ the services we use? This session will explore these questions and the question of data ‘centralization’ and machine learning, whilst also looking at some of the other options out there.
Disrupt Your Digital Shadow
What are digital shadows? How do our data traces create profiles and enable us to be tracked and how can this be minimized or modified? Though it is never possible to completely erase your digital shadows, there are strategies, tools and tactics that you can use to play with, mess with, or minimize them. This session will look at some of these techniques and discuss which ones might be worth trying out, and why.
Investigate Your Metadata
We generate metadata all the time – such as, when we send emails, post online or even just walk around with our mobile phones in our pockets. This session will explore metadata: what it is, why it is important and how our everyday lives can be predicted by analyzing it.
Mastering Your Mobile
Your phone is talking not only to you. It is constantly generating and transmitting data to others. This workshop will open the box on your mobile phone. Explore how it works and find what choices and changes you can make to increase your security and privacy. Walk away with practical tips and tricks on basic phone security and detoxing your data traces.
WTF (What the Facebook)?
What aspects of your life are you sharing with Facebook? How much does this company know about you through your daily use of products like Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook messenger and other Facebook-owned services? Why does it matter? This workshop will take a critical look at Facebook, and explore tactics for minimizing the data traces you leave, through strategies and settings.
Boost your Browsing
Searching, surfing and shopping, much of it happens in your browser. Curious how your browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and so on) leaves you open to tracking and profiling? This workshop focuses on tools and strategies for gaining more control over your data traces, by looking ‘under the hood’ of your browser, into settings and configurations; discussing strategies of use; and exploring a few specific add-ons and extensions that will transform your browsing experience.
How the Web Works
We are always connecting to the internet via our mobile phones, tablets and computers, but do we actually know how the internet works? Learn how you can connect to the internet in different ways, and who has access to your communication along the way. Walk away with tips and tricks, but also a good understanding of how it works, so you can figure out in the future what you think about the latest service, platform or app and if you want to use it.