Defenders of Digital

Season 1
Season 2

The tech fuelling a new wave of gender violence

Stalkerware is making headlines, for all the wrong reasons

How could her partner know where she is every day? Why does his girlfriend know who he's messaging? The answer could be a disturbing new technology that's fuelling a new wave of violence across the globe. The worst thing? It's as easy as downloading an app.

This app can install violence

Consumer surveillance and privacy are hot topics. Not only because they're the cornerstone of our human rights, but now digital tech is pressing the fast forward button on spying techniques. One dangerous software, fuelling a new wave of gender violence, is stalkerware.


Spouseware. Legal Spyware. Stalkerware. It has many names, but the premise is simple. Stalkerware is software used to secretly spy on another person's private life via a smart device. Usually installed secretly on mobile phones by co-called 'friends', paranoid partners (hence the spouseware title) and others, stalkerware tracks everything from the victim's physical location and internet activity, to text messages and phone calls to friends. Even though it's sometimes defined as legal spyware, it's anything but. Victims can't spot it too. Meanwhile, stalkers are accessing a wide range of personal data, and it's having bad repercussions for today's relationships.

A new form of relationship violence

Stalkerware is on the rise. In 2019, Kaspersky detected a 67 percent year-on-year increase of stalkerware on users' mobile devices globally; Germany, Italy and France were the most hit countries in Europe. Perhaps more shockingly, early data suggests the situation didn't improve in 2020. Alessandra Pauncz, Executive Director of WWP European Network, highlights how dangerous this threat is, "The effects of cyber-violence on women and girls are devastating because they're part of a continuum of violence that deprives them of their freedom."

It's fuelling a new type of violence across the globe, in which people take away their partner's freedom - in more ways than one. But aside from violating privacy, for victims and their abusers, there are other dangers. As a form of malware – short for "malicious software," a type of computer program designed to infect a user's computer and inflict harm – these programs can expose the victims' data and breach protection tech, increasing the chances of their device getting infected by other malware.

It might sound like attackers are predominantly men, but Eva Galperin, Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that "this is not just a 'men spying on women' issue." From former spouses spying on people through internet-connect thermostats to men being outed as gay, Eva and her team have seen all manner of stalkerware victims and cases.

Fighting for online privacy and data protection

Before stalkerware hit the mainstream, Eva was leading the fightback. She was outraged by a hacker who abused women then threatened to compromise their devices if they spoke out. Now she's an influential voice in the fight against stalkerware, helping thousands of victims get their privacy back. Watch her story, featured in our series Defenders of Digital.

Education can combat stalkerware

Stalkerware isn't the easiest enemy to spot, but it starts with education. As Alfonso Ramirez, General Manager at Kaspersky Spain says, "It's quite hard to fight against stalkerware using only tech tools. However, it would really help if practitioners and users are aware stalkerware exists, know how to recognize the signs of this software being installed on their devices and what to do next."

As awareness rises, with Eva and others leading the charge, new global initiatives to fight back are cropping up, like DeStalk. Created by Kaspersky and NGO partners, DeStalk is an EU-wide project designed to educate people, professionals and the government on how to spot stalkers and deal with them.


We have a gender violence pandemic on our hands. Help fight stalkerware. Check out Stop Stalkerware to educate yourself and your loved ones.

NextAutoplay

Fighting police for openness on cell tracking

Chicago's tiny not-for-profit taking on powerful institutions.

The history of surveillance is one of control. As monitoring technologies accelerate, one not-for-profit noticed a concerning rise in unethical police cell phone observation. Their objections led to new, stronger digital rights legislation.

Stingrays and cell phones: Is your pocket private?

Smartphones have improved our lives more than we could have imagined. We work on them, use them to take and store private photos and they know where we are at any moment. But with advanced surveillance techniques, phones have become a powerful way for law enforcement to observe and identify us, ethically or not.

Last year's change to remote life made us all digital. Are we now in danger of trading private digital data for convenient digital services? Check out Kaspersky's privacy predictions for 2021 and learn how this year is going to affect our privacy in cyberspace.

One Chicago not-for-profit, Lucy Parsons Labs, is demanding government agencies like the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be more transparent about how and why they track people through their phones. Defenders of Digital episode three speaks with Lucy Parsons Labs' Executive Director Freddy Martinez about how law enforcement use technologies to covertly observe people, what it means for digital rights and how his team made US legal history.

How to defend privacy in digital space?

Kira Rakova and her team help you regain control of your personal data.

Empowering African women against cyber-harassment

Safe Sisters fight harassment and 'revenge porn' with education

Online abuse and cyber-harassment mean a disproportionate number of women remove themselves from crucial discussions. One not-for-profit is making a change for women in East Africa.

Can women protect themselves from online harassment?

In the digital age, not only do we send videos to friends and sing online karaoke with those we've never met, many are using social media to fight for equality. But online harassment, image-based sexual abuse (also called 'revenge porn') and cyberattacks can stop women especially from being part of the conversation that leads to real change. These cowardly acts also leave victims feeling embarrassed, ashamed and alone.

Safe Sisters is a fellowship program empowering girls and women, especially human rights activists, journalists and those in the media, to fight online abuse. In Defenders of Digital season two episode five, Safe Sisters' Immaculate Nabwire explains a landmark Ugandan image-based sexual abuse case that inspires her, the digital threats women in East Africa face and how her team are fighting for change.

AI tech lets disabled gamers smash access barriers

Gamers are using their voice to overcome accessibility problems

By 2023, there could be over three billion gamers worldwide. But for some people with disabilities, taking part in this wildly popular passion can be frustrating to impossible. Now, one piece of tech is out to make slaying dragons and building civilizations accessible to all. Will it change the future of gaming?

The AI-powered voice of a generation’s gamers

Since the world's first video game 'Pong' appeared in 1958, gaming has evolved in ways never imagined. But game accessibility is still a problem for as many as 30 million people in the US, because they have an impairment that means they come up against accessibility barriers when gaming.

Fridai is changing all that. The voice-activated, AI-powered assistant gives advice on anything gamers with disabilities may need, from hands-free options to being reminded of the game's objective. In Defenders of Digital series two, episode four, Mark Engelhardt, Fridai's Co-founder and CEO, talks about how the technology uses AI to create a new interface between humans and machines.

This NGO believes an online privacy utopia is worth fighting for

The world of digital privacy is changing.

Algorithms are everywhere, but they are trained based on the beliefs of their developer. In episode two of our second season of Defenders of Digital, we learn about Homo Digitalis' work to expose algorithm bias that impedes digital rights for millions. The first corporate they catch might surprise you.

Ethical algorithm moderation

Algorithms can improve our experience online. But one not-for-profit is going beyond the code for the greater good. Founded in 2018, Homo Digitalis has over 100 members. They promote transparency in algorithmic programming and safeguards against discrimination by algorithm.

Because programmers – as humans – have biases, algorithms learn from those biases. When we hand power over to the algorithm, it may erode digital rights and impinge freedom of expression without us knowing.

Homo Digitalis has already called out one tech giant for their moderation process. It could have impacted millions. Who was it? Find out in Defenders of Digital season two, episode two.

The people fighting online child exploitation, one image at a time

Meet Susie Hargreaves and her team.

Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) hunts down child sexual abuse images online and helps identify children involved so that law enforcement can intervene. While the recent pandemic has triggered greater numbers of child abuse images, CEO Susie Hargreaves and her team are fighting back with a new piece of tech.

Defenders of Digital episode one: Internet Watch Foundation 

COVID-19 has fuelled a disturbing increase in child sex abuse material online. Our latest Defenders of Digital series begins by introducing Susie Hargreaves's team at Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and explores their mission to make children safer. It also looks at how the pandemic has moved the goalposts and the new tech making a difference.

Where it all began 

Formed in 1996 in response to a fast-growing number of online child abuse cases, IWF's 155 members include tech's biggest names, such as Microsoft and Google. They're united by the common goal to rid the internet of child sexual abuse images and videos.

Online child abuse is a growing issue

The pandemic has made the issue of online child sexual abuse material more acute. During lockdown in the UK alone, IWF says 300,000 people were looking at online child sexual abuse images at any one time. What's worse, the material is always changing.

Self-generated content: A dark twist

IWF has recently seen a worrying rise in self-generated sexual abuse material, chiefly among girls age 11 to 13. The victim is groomed or coerced into photographing or filming themselves, which the sexual predator captures and distributes online. In the past year alone, the proportion of online content they're removing that is self-generated has risen from 33 to 40 percent.

New tech making the difference

There are encouraging developments helping IWF with their work. Microsoft's PhotoDNA analyzes known child exploitation images, finds copies elsewhere on the internet, and reports them for removal. It helped IWF remove 132,700 web pages showing child sexual abuse images in 2019. How does it work?

PhotoDNA scours the web for matching images

First, PhotoDNA creates a unique digital fingerprint of a known child abuse image, called a 'hash.' It compares that fingerprint against other hashes across the internet to find copies. It reports copies it finds to the site's host. It's a fast and ingenious way to shut down child exploitation.

Help stop child sexual exploitation: Report abuse images

Internet users who have stumbled across suspected child abuse images and reported them to IWF have been instrumental in starting a process that's led to many children in abusive situations receiving help. If you see an image or video you think may show child sexual exploitation, report it anonymously to IWF.

Want to learn how to better protect your kids when they're online? A free training course, based on the Skill Cup mobile app and developed with Kaspersky, is now available for parents to understand the challenges children face today.

Explore the course to better protect your kids online.

Meet the tech visionaries defending your digital world

Five digital defenders, one goal: Protecting us every day

The Defenders of Digital video series profiles tech experts who guard the digital world. We'll soon launch season two, but for now, these are the five people whose stories started it all. They're critical to our future: they make our digital world safe, free, open and functional. Who are they, and what motivates them?

Episode 1: Eva Galperin returns victims’ privacy

Eva Galperin was outraged by a hacker who abused women then threatened to compromise their devices if they spoke out. She has since become the most powerful voice in the fight against stalkerware, and in doing so, helped thousands of victims get their privacy back.

Episode 2: Einar Otto Stangvik identifies photo thieves

Security specialist Einar Otto Stangvik wanted to use his programming skills to do more than make money. He developed software to identify hackers stealing and sharing private photos from iCloud backups. One hacker turned out to be a prominent public figure.

Now Stangvik is onto an even more ambitious project that will help vulnerable children.

Episode 3: Salvi Pascual uncensors the internet for Cubans

Salvi Pascual knows the heavily censored Cuban media and internet well. When he moved to the US, friends started asking him to send them online content they wanted. It turned into a business, but getting around government controls had Pascual's team always on their toes. Soon, they'd developed a solution that's uncensored the internet for thousands of Cubans.

Episode 4: Giorgio Patrini finds fakes for humanity

Giorgio Patrini is fighting back against the constant threat of fake news.

'Deepfakes' is the disturbing phenomenon of videos or audio that use AI-based algorithms to substitute one person for another. Nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, they're used to harass, blackmail and commit fraud. But Patrini knew when technology creates a problem, it can also create a solution.

Episode 5: Kira Rakova gives us back privacy control

Kira Rakova believes our digital footprint is like a private journal. A breach of private online information is like publishing someone's diary without their consent. While there is increasing concern over personal data being used to manipulate and defraud, not everyone understands the risks and what they can do about them.

That's where Rakova and her team come in. They use privacy auditing to help people regain control of their data.

Watch out for Defenders of Digital series two

You've seen the first series of Defenders of Digital. Soon, we'll bring you a new series with changemakers from around the globe.

Subscribe to Tomorrow Unlocked on YouTube for the latest episodes.

#defendersofdigital

About the heroes fighting for a free and safe internet

The tech fuelling a new wave of gender violence

Stalkerware is making headlines, for all the wrong reasons

How could her partner know where she is every day? Why does his girlfriend know who he's messaging? The answer could be a disturbing new technology that's fuelling a new wave of violence across the globe. The worst thing? It's as easy as downloading an app.

This app can install violence

Consumer surveillance and privacy are hot topics. Not only because they're the cornerstone of our human rights, but now digital tech is pressing the fast forward button on spying techniques. One dangerous software, fuelling a new wave of gender violence, is stalkerware.


Spouseware. Legal Spyware. Stalkerware. It has many names, but the premise is simple. Stalkerware is software used to secretly spy on another person's private life via a smart device. Usually installed secretly on mobile phones by co-called 'friends', paranoid partners (hence the spouseware title) and others, stalkerware tracks everything from the victim's physical location and internet activity, to text messages and phone calls to friends. Even though it's sometimes defined as legal spyware, it's anything but. Victims can't spot it too. Meanwhile, stalkers are accessing a wide range of personal data, and it's having bad repercussions for today's relationships.

A new form of relationship violence

Stalkerware is on the rise. In 2019, Kaspersky detected a 67 percent year-on-year increase of stalkerware on users' mobile devices globally; Germany, Italy and France were the most hit countries in Europe. Perhaps more shockingly, early data suggests the situation didn't improve in 2020. Alessandra Pauncz, Executive Director of WWP European Network, highlights how dangerous this threat is, "The effects of cyber-violence on women and girls are devastating because they're part of a continuum of violence that deprives them of their freedom."

It's fuelling a new type of violence across the globe, in which people take away their partner's freedom - in more ways than one. But aside from violating privacy, for victims and their abusers, there are other dangers. As a form of malware – short for "malicious software," a type of computer program designed to infect a user's computer and inflict harm – these programs can expose the victims' data and breach protection tech, increasing the chances of their device getting infected by other malware.

It might sound like attackers are predominantly men, but Eva Galperin, Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that "this is not just a 'men spying on women' issue." From former spouses spying on people through internet-connect thermostats to men being outed as gay, Eva and her team have seen all manner of stalkerware victims and cases.

Fighting for online privacy and data protection

Before stalkerware hit the mainstream, Eva was leading the fightback. She was outraged by a hacker who abused women then threatened to compromise their devices if they spoke out. Now she's an influential voice in the fight against stalkerware, helping thousands of victims get their privacy back. Watch her story, featured in our series Defenders of Digital.

Education can combat stalkerware

Stalkerware isn't the easiest enemy to spot, but it starts with education. As Alfonso Ramirez, General Manager at Kaspersky Spain says, "It's quite hard to fight against stalkerware using only tech tools. However, it would really help if practitioners and users are aware stalkerware exists, know how to recognize the signs of this software being installed on their devices and what to do next."

As awareness rises, with Eva and others leading the charge, new global initiatives to fight back are cropping up, like DeStalk. Created by Kaspersky and NGO partners, DeStalk is an EU-wide project designed to educate people, professionals and the government on how to spot stalkers and deal with them.


We have a gender violence pandemic on our hands. Help fight stalkerware. Check out Stop Stalkerware to educate yourself and your loved ones.

NextAutoplay

How to defend privacy in digital space?

Kira Rakova and her team help you regain control of your personal data.

Fighting police for openness on cell tracking

Chicago's tiny not-for-profit taking on powerful institutions.

The history of surveillance is one of control. As monitoring technologies accelerate, one not-for-profit noticed a concerning rise in unethical police cell phone observation. Their objections led to new, stronger digital rights legislation.

Stingrays and cell phones: Is your pocket private?

Smartphones have improved our lives more than we could have imagined. We work on them, use them to take and store private photos and they know where we are at any moment. But with advanced surveillance techniques, phones have become a powerful way for law enforcement to observe and identify us, ethically or not.

Last year's change to remote life made us all digital. Are we now in danger of trading private digital data for convenient digital services? Check out Kaspersky's privacy predictions for 2021 and learn how this year is going to affect our privacy in cyberspace.

One Chicago not-for-profit, Lucy Parsons Labs, is demanding government agencies like the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be more transparent about how and why they track people through their phones. Defenders of Digital episode three speaks with Lucy Parsons Labs' Executive Director Freddy Martinez about how law enforcement use technologies to covertly observe people, what it means for digital rights and how his team made US legal history.

NextAutoplay

Empowering African women against cyber-harassment

Safe Sisters fight harassment and 'revenge porn' with education

Online abuse and cyber-harassment mean a disproportionate number of women remove themselves from crucial discussions. One not-for-profit is making a change for women in East Africa.

Can women protect themselves from online harassment?

In the digital age, not only do we send videos to friends and sing online karaoke with those we've never met, many are using social media to fight for equality. But online harassment, image-based sexual abuse (also called 'revenge porn') and cyberattacks can stop women especially from being part of the conversation that leads to real change. These cowardly acts also leave victims feeling embarrassed, ashamed and alone.

Safe Sisters is a fellowship program empowering girls and women, especially human rights activists, journalists and those in the media, to fight online abuse. In Defenders of Digital season two episode five, Safe Sisters' Immaculate Nabwire explains a landmark Ugandan image-based sexual abuse case that inspires her, the digital threats women in East Africa face and how her team are fighting for change.

AI tech lets disabled gamers smash access barriers

Gamers are using their voice to overcome accessibility problems

By 2023, there could be over three billion gamers worldwide. But for some people with disabilities, taking part in this wildly popular passion can be frustrating to impossible. Now, one piece of tech is out to make slaying dragons and building civilizations accessible to all. Will it change the future of gaming?

The AI-powered voice of a generation’s gamers

Since the world's first video game 'Pong' appeared in 1958, gaming has evolved in ways never imagined. But game accessibility is still a problem for as many as 30 million people in the US, because they have an impairment that means they come up against accessibility barriers when gaming.

Fridai is changing all that. The voice-activated, AI-powered assistant gives advice on anything gamers with disabilities may need, from hands-free options to being reminded of the game's objective. In Defenders of Digital series two, episode four, Mark Engelhardt, Fridai's Co-founder and CEO, talks about how the technology uses AI to create a new interface between humans and machines.

This NGO believes an online privacy utopia is worth fighting for

The world of digital privacy is changing.

Algorithms are everywhere, but they are trained based on the beliefs of their developer. In episode two of our second season of Defenders of Digital, we learn about Homo Digitalis' work to expose algorithm bias that impedes digital rights for millions. The first corporate they catch might surprise you.

Ethical algorithm moderation

Algorithms can improve our experience online. But one not-for-profit is going beyond the code for the greater good. Founded in 2018, Homo Digitalis has over 100 members. They promote transparency in algorithmic programming and safeguards against discrimination by algorithm.

Because programmers – as humans – have biases, algorithms learn from those biases. When we hand power over to the algorithm, it may erode digital rights and impinge freedom of expression without us knowing.

Homo Digitalis has already called out one tech giant for their moderation process. It could have impacted millions. Who was it? Find out in Defenders of Digital season two, episode two.

The people fighting online child exploitation, one image at a time

Meet Susie Hargreaves and her team.

Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) hunts down child sexual abuse images online and helps identify children involved so that law enforcement can intervene. While the recent pandemic has triggered greater numbers of child abuse images, CEO Susie Hargreaves and her team are fighting back with a new piece of tech.

Defenders of Digital episode one: Internet Watch Foundation 

COVID-19 has fuelled a disturbing increase in child sex abuse material online. Our latest Defenders of Digital series begins by introducing Susie Hargreaves's team at Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and explores their mission to make children safer. It also looks at how the pandemic has moved the goalposts and the new tech making a difference.

Where it all began 

Formed in 1996 in response to a fast-growing number of online child abuse cases, IWF's 155 members include tech's biggest names, such as Microsoft and Google. They're united by the common goal to rid the internet of child sexual abuse images and videos.

Online child abuse is a growing issue

The pandemic has made the issue of online child sexual abuse material more acute. During lockdown in the UK alone, IWF says 300,000 people were looking at online child sexual abuse images at any one time. What's worse, the material is always changing.

Self-generated content: A dark twist

IWF has recently seen a worrying rise in self-generated sexual abuse material, chiefly among girls age 11 to 13. The victim is groomed or coerced into photographing or filming themselves, which the sexual predator captures and distributes online. In the past year alone, the proportion of online content they're removing that is self-generated has risen from 33 to 40 percent.

New tech making the difference

There are encouraging developments helping IWF with their work. Microsoft's PhotoDNA analyzes known child exploitation images, finds copies elsewhere on the internet, and reports them for removal. It helped IWF remove 132,700 web pages showing child sexual abuse images in 2019. How does it work?

PhotoDNA scours the web for matching images

First, PhotoDNA creates a unique digital fingerprint of a known child abuse image, called a 'hash.' It compares that fingerprint against other hashes across the internet to find copies. It reports copies it finds to the site's host. It's a fast and ingenious way to shut down child exploitation.

Help stop child sexual exploitation: Report abuse images

Internet users who have stumbled across suspected child abuse images and reported them to IWF have been instrumental in starting a process that's led to many children in abusive situations receiving help. If you see an image or video you think may show child sexual exploitation, report it anonymously to IWF.

Want to learn how to better protect your kids when they're online? A free training course, based on the Skill Cup mobile app and developed with Kaspersky, is now available for parents to understand the challenges children face today.

Explore the course to better protect your kids online.

Meet the tech visionaries defending your digital world

Five digital defenders, one goal: Protecting us every day

The Defenders of Digital video series profiles tech experts who guard the digital world. We'll soon launch season two, but for now, these are the five people whose stories started it all. They're critical to our future: they make our digital world safe, free, open and functional. Who are they, and what motivates them?

Episode 1: Eva Galperin returns victims’ privacy

Eva Galperin was outraged by a hacker who abused women then threatened to compromise their devices if they spoke out. She has since become the most powerful voice in the fight against stalkerware, and in doing so, helped thousands of victims get their privacy back.

Episode 2: Einar Otto Stangvik identifies photo thieves

Security specialist Einar Otto Stangvik wanted to use his programming skills to do more than make money. He developed software to identify hackers stealing and sharing private photos from iCloud backups. One hacker turned out to be a prominent public figure.

Now Stangvik is onto an even more ambitious project that will help vulnerable children.

Episode 3: Salvi Pascual uncensors the internet for Cubans

Salvi Pascual knows the heavily censored Cuban media and internet well. When he moved to the US, friends started asking him to send them online content they wanted. It turned into a business, but getting around government controls had Pascual's team always on their toes. Soon, they'd developed a solution that's uncensored the internet for thousands of Cubans.

Episode 4: Giorgio Patrini finds fakes for humanity

Giorgio Patrini is fighting back against the constant threat of fake news.

'Deepfakes' is the disturbing phenomenon of videos or audio that use AI-based algorithms to substitute one person for another. Nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, they're used to harass, blackmail and commit fraud. But Patrini knew when technology creates a problem, it can also create a solution.

Episode 5: Kira Rakova gives us back privacy control

Kira Rakova believes our digital footprint is like a private journal. A breach of private online information is like publishing someone's diary without their consent. While there is increasing concern over personal data being used to manipulate and defraud, not everyone understands the risks and what they can do about them.

That's where Rakova and her team come in. They use privacy auditing to help people regain control of their data.

Watch out for Defenders of Digital series two

You've seen the first series of Defenders of Digital. Soon, we'll bring you a new series with changemakers from around the globe.

Subscribe to Tomorrow Unlocked on YouTube for the latest episodes.