Reconfigure is a feminist cybersecurity project that uses community-based participatory methods and feminist approaches to reconfigure cybersecurity research and build public capacity for data privacy and action.

Overview

Threat modelling procedures in cybersecurity rely on experts to identify vulnerabilities and potential attackers. This process often reflects the assumptions and concerns about causes of insecurity among researchers, many of whom focus on security perspectives from the point of view of governments and large organisations. There are, however, many ways that citizens can understand threats in robust ways from their everyday experience.

Following feminist approaches to knowledge creation and the emerging ‘design justice’ model for technology design, this project helps citizens draw on their own experiences and individual positionality to expand cybersecurity research in threat modelling and usable security design. We do this through a series of public workshops and focus group discussions on personal data privacy.

Rather than dictating what threats citizens should be worrying about, this project elicits and listens to citizens’ concerns to expand the scope of threat modelling in cybersecurity. This process creates pathways for citizens to engage in shaping future research directions for cybersecurity: ones that are grounded in the lived experience of those who are traditionally excluded from discussions of cyber- or information security. The project will culminate with a series of reports for public dissemination.

People

  • Julia Slupska

    Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

    Principal Investigator

  • Professor Gina Neff

    Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

    Co-Principal Investigator