Zara Rahman

At the beginning of this month, The Engine Room team–all 17 of us!–met in-person for our annual team retreat. This year, we gathered at the Redondo de Guayedra on Gran Canaria, complete with stunning views and even better weather.  This year, we did things a little differently than how we’ve done them in the past. […]

In this post, we share some thoughts on how civil society could advance our collective advocacy on digital ID systems.

Within civil society, we can’t control what technology is developed, but we can control how we choose to engage with it.

This is not about the WFP or Palantir, but about ensuring that exploitative data practices have no place in civil society work, be it through pro bono partnerships, in-house development or paid contracts.

We’re retiring The Compiler – not because we think that the mission of it is any less important, but because we think it’s time to focus our energies on other ways of achieving that mission.

Earlier this summer, I spent six days in Montenegro with 60 ‘data investigators’ – or people working on data investigation – from around the Balkans and around the world. At this Data Investigation Camp, hosted by Tactical Tech and Share Lab, our shared goal was to focus on ‘how we can use data to understand and expose misconduct and abuses of power within a human rights, investigative journalism and anti-corruption framework’.

Last week, I had the pleasure of being part of the Ethics and Risks working group at the 2017 ID2020 Platform for Change Summit. This event focused on issues faced by people living without recognised identification, and brought together multiple stakeholders, public and private, to discuss these challenges.

This week, we held our annual retreat – where all core team members meet in person, and our office goes from being virtual to being a real, concrete house (in this case, one outside Nice, France.).