Risk Designations

Title

Without time… without place? Navigating High and Low Risk Designations in Information Security Research

Abstract

Information security research implicitly divides communities into high-risk and low-risk categories based on their perceived vulnerability to harm from potentially malicious digital practices. High-risk individuals, including activists and journalists, are thought to face immediate dangers such as targeted surveillance or physical harm. In contrast, low-risk individuals are assumed to engage in routine digital activities without significant threats to their physical security. This article critiques this binary classification within information security scholarship by exploring the conceptual and empirical instabilities inherent in this framework. Drawing on ideas from the interpretative social sciences, the article offers a disciplinary critique in three ways, 1) by bringing attention to relational aspects of risk; 2) by examining the normative underpinnings of this binary; 3) by discussing ideas of the everyday. I consider which aspects of risk this binary renders invisible and explore alternative ways of thinking about information security.