Philippine Environmental Defenders

Topic

Information security practices in environmental activism in the Philippines.

Summary

This study explores the information security practices of environmental activists in the Philippines through a five-and-a-half-month ethnographic field study around Cebu City. It examines how travel through conflict-affected, low-connectivity areas and encounters at checkpoints shaped ongoing risks of device seizure and data compromise. It shows how activists developed collective practices such as distress signalling, data minimisation, obscurity and physical document transfer to manage these risks.

Status

Manuscript currently under review.