Work on Tech-Dossier on Privacy Since January 2025 ISOC-CH is working on privacy-focused Tech Dossiers (TD), which relate to various projects which are technically supported by Next Generation Internet (NGI) funding, provided by the EU Commission and the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) of the Swiss Confederation (cf. https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/en/home/seri/seri.html). In scope of this work, also the Artificial Intelligence (AI) topic was given special attention as to show how to make a more sovereign use of its potentials without neglecting the risks associated to the intensified practice in datafication of everything (including the collection and use of Personal Identifiable Information, PII) to make those systems generate (sometimes useful) answers. Teaching the Teachers on Privacy As an audience, we choose to raise awareness among early stage secondary school teachers in their last step of formation about the dangers of datafication, which (soon) will have the job to teach their topic (e.g., German or Mathematics) on secondary schools among Switzerland. As teaching is done more and more interdisciplinary and with an increasing relation to digitization, teachers are formed at University of Zurich (UZH) also in aspects of digital educational tools used in teaching. From our perspective, it’s absolutely vital that at least young teachers get themselves and critically tought in aspects of digitization such that they can raise awareness among kids about it and we can have a scalable effect on spreading critical knowledge on privacy implications of digital systems, increasing thus media literacy in the general public and give insights to alternatives which can be used. Concrete Teacher Audience at University of Zurich To start this task, we teamed up with Tessa Consoli, Academic Associate to the Chair of Prof. Dr. Dominik Petko on Teaching and Educational Technology at UZH in the Institute of Education (IfE; cf. https://www.ife.uzh.ch/en/research/petko/staff/consolitessa.html), researching on aspects of the influence and use of digitzation in the secondary school system. Since Spring Semester 2025 she runs a course on Transerversal Learning including a strong focus on digitization topics in schools (cf. course description: https://studentservices.uzh.ch/uzh/anonym/vvz/?sap-language=DE&sap-ui-language=DE#/details/2024/004/SM/51260439). With her work, the IfE is assessing which digital educational tools are being used in the secondary school system across Switzerland, running surveys (cf. corresponding research work: https://www.ife.uzh.ch/en/research/petko.html). First Efforts with a Presentation and Reactions As the course lecturer Tessa sees and shares the interest to shed light not only on chances, but also on the risks of the ongoing pervasive (mass) datafication — including the loss of digital sovereignty in the public school system —, we were invited to give a public intervention in her course on 18.3.2025 (cf. in PDF: slides), not only showing the problematic global situation of mass datafication through, e.g., means of Mass Surveillance as shown since — at the very latest — the Snowden revelations since June 2013, but also how to engage in self-defense by using technological tools for a more decentralized and private Internet, using means of media literacy and tools which are also supported by the NGI funding framework (like, e.g., Mastodon, Tor or Jitsi). The intervention at UZH proved to be very useful as the teachers present weren’t generally aware of the scope of the (non-consensual) datafication going on, which happens to be used, e.g., in AI systems as training material, imposing privacy risks of data leakage and loss of control through automatic decision-making with people don’t understand why certain (e.g., insurance) prices for them rise or they don’t get a credit. Awareness at which points data gets collected by own actions was also not very sharp: most people weren’t aware that “simple” news sites massively collect behavioral data and share it with hundreds of “partners” — a problem which can be reduced by using certain Add-Ons or Browser Bundles (especially for smart phones) to share less data by technical means. The post NGI0: Teach the Teachers on Dangers of (Mass) Datafication appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

On May 15th, ISOC Switzerland Chapter hosted the Public Policy Sessions 2024 including a diverse set of introductory talks and a very interesting panel on the topic of disinformation online, organized by Bernie Hoeneisen, co-founder of ISOC-CH. You can watch the recorded live stream here: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/isoc-ch-public-policy2024 First, Markus Kummer (ISOC-CH Chapter Advisory Council Representative) introduced... The post Public Policy Sessions 2024 (summary) appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

On Friday, March 24th, 2023, the ISOC-CH General Assembly decided to join the explicit disassociation from the position paper "Joint Statement zur Plattformregulierung" issued and co-signed by Digitale Gesellschaft (Digiges) a few months ago. The post ISOC-CH to support disassociation from DigiGes Platform statement appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

On Friday, March 24th, 2023, the ISOC-CH General Assembly decided to join the explicit disassociation from the position paper "Joint Statement zur Plattformregulierung" issued and co-signed by Digitale Gesellschaft (Digiges) a few months ago. The post ISOC-CH to support disassociation from DigiGes Platform statement appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The parliamentary initiative Pult violates the Swiss Federal Constitution, including freedom of expression and information as well as freedom of the media. Therefore ISOC-CH, pEp Foundation and Pirate Party recommend rejection of the parliamentary initiative Pult. The post ISOC-CH, pEp Foundation and Pirate Party recommend rejection of the parliamentary initiative Pult appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

John Spencer, a former US Army Major, is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison Policy Forum. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and started to get bogged into a gruelling siege at Mariupol, he decided to help the best way he could: by getting his urban warfare manual translated to Ukrainian and hope... The post Can Russian Wikipedia go offline? appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

On June 5th and 6th, Mission Publiques invited stakeholders worldwide to discuss the future of Internet governance and to seek answers to How to shape the future of digital cooperation? Who should decide how to leverage the opportunities brought by the use of digital technologies and mitigate the risks they involve? A couple of board... The post ISOC Switzerland Chapter takes part in “We the Internet” Global Citizens’ and Stakeholders’ Dialogue appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

Building on the first two events of the Values of Internet Technologies (VIT) series, this third workshop will explore Human Rights and how they relate to the digital sphere. We will delve into the impact of Internet protocol design on Human Rights and look at the protocols existing today. Finally we will discuss the potential of... The post Human Rights and present / future ICT ‒ Why and how are they related? appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.