DIGITAL SECURITY PRACTICES AMONG EXILED ACTIVISTS Diaspora activists benefit tremendously from digital technologies. Online tools help them exchange information, connect, coordinate, organize, and mobilize across countries and borders. Yet the extensive use of digital technologies also entails risks. Networked online communication creates multiple points of exposure that threat actors can exploit to compromise confidential information and private data. According to digital security researcher John Scott-Railton, “the capacity to connect has vastly outpaced the ability to secure.” 94 Activists rely on tools and platforms not designed to operate securely within high-risk contexts in which resourceful state actors seek to gather confidential information, penetrate groups and networks, and identify online dissenters to punish them. Now more than ever, activists need to work harder to protect their privacy and secure their data in this environment of rapidly evolving technologies and threats. Although information on digital security has increased in recent years, actual knowledge on risk mitigation and changes in user behaviour still vary considerably across communities and contexts. UNDERMINING IN-COUNTRY TIES Both immediate experience with threats, as well as “stories of security incidents spreading through peer groups, organisations and networks,” play an important role in raising risk awareness and the adoption of security practices amongst activists.95 An Iranian digital security expert confirmed that the attacks against civil society in the diaspora during recent years contributed to improving strategies of risk mitigation. Yet not all activists have taken steps to improve their safety. Several Syrian trainers for digital security deplored the fact that individuals who did not feel directly threatened by regime authorities (such as those living outside the country or in areas liberated from regime control) often considered themselves to be out of reach and therefore did not adopt adequate digital security practices. The trainers emphasized that some of these individuals had limited awareness on how their data and accounts could be used to put others at risk—not simply themselves. 94 Scott-Railton, J. (2016). Security for the High-Risk User: Separate and Unequal, p. 2. https://www.johnscottrailton.com/ security-for-the-high-risk-user. 95 Kazansky, B. (2016). Digital Security in Context: Learning How Human Rights Defenders Adopt Digital Security Practices. Project report, p. 25. https://secresearch.tacticaltech.org/media/pages/pdfs/original/DigitalSecurityInContext.pdf. 28