Tactical Tech

Overview

Tactical Technology Collective — known as Tactical Tech — is a creative international nonprofit that has spent more than two decades investigating how digital technologies reshape societies and individual lives, and turning those investigations into practical resources for the people most affected. Founded in 2003 and based in Berlin since 2012, it operates as a registered Dutch Stichting (foundation) and is co-directed by its founders Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski. Tactical Tech works across two main audiences: the broad public, reached through exhibitions, kits, and interactive experiences designed to make complex data and privacy questions tangible and actionable; and civil society actors — journalists, NGOs, human rights defenders — for whom it builds more specialised investigative and digital security capacity. Since its founding, Tactical Tech has directly engaged over 30 million people worldwide through its programmes, produced resources available in 45 languages, and hosted or supported more than 1,000 events in over 71 countries. All its educational resources are released under Creative Commons licences, making them freely adaptable by partners everywhere.

History and Founding

Tactical Tech was founded in September 2003 by Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski, starting life in a former hairdresser's salon in Amsterdam. Its first major public event was Summer Source — co-hosted with the Multimedia Institute Croatia — an eight-day gathering of 80 participants and facilitators from 34 countries focused on implementing Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for civil society organisations. That spirit of bringing together technologists and rights advocates in collaborative, practice-based settings has characterised the organisation ever since.

Through the mid-2000s, Tactical Tech ran Source Camps across Asia and Africa, developed early digital security toolkits for human rights defenders in partnership with Frontline Defenders (training over 800 NGO members), and produced one of the first widely used guides to information activism — 10 Tactics for Turning Information into Action (2009), a 50-minute film translated into 25 languages and screened at over 200 events in 60 countries. The organisation assembled informal offices in Amman, Brighton, Bangalore, and elsewhere before consolidating in Berlin in 2012, where its international team settled into a permanent base. In 2023 Tactical Tech marked its twentieth anniversary with a retrospective timeline of its collaborative journey, and Marek Tuszynski was recognised by Mozilla's Rise 25 Awards as one of the visionary leaders shaping a more ethical internet.

Programs and Projects

The Glass Room. Tactical Tech's most visible public intervention, The Glass Room is an immersive pop-up experience — part art installation, part exhibition, part workshop space — designed to make the invisible world of personal data legible and debatable. First produced in collaboration with Mozilla, the flagship Glass Room opened in London in 2016 and drew nearly 19,000 visitors in 19 days. A New York edition followed. In San Francisco in 2019, the exhibition ran for three weeks. In response to demand from communities that wanted their own versions, Tactical Tech developed the Glass Room Community Edition — a lightweight, portable format that can be shipped worldwide to schools, libraries, festivals, and metro stations, available in over 30 languages. A Misinformation Edition explores how false information spreads online. The Glass Room has been hosted at over 500 events across 71 countries, engaging 480,000 people through those partner-led events alone. A permanent interactive piece, The Opinionator, developed with the Futurium in Berlin, explores political micro-targeting and is expected to reach over one million visitors over three years.

Data Detox Kit. The Data Detox Kit is a freely available, highly accessible guide to improving one's digital life across multiple dimensions — privacy, security, wellbeing, environmental impact, and misinformation — through concrete, step-by-step actions. Originally conceived as a companion to The Glass Room, it launched as a web app in 2017 and received over 100,000 visitors in its first three months. It now includes more than 30 individual guides, workshop outlines for educators, an alternative App Centre with privacy-respecting software recommendations, and a resources download section. The Kit is available in over 45 languages and is used by organisations, libraries, museums, and cultural centres worldwide to anchor conversations about digital literacy. Organisations interested in distributing the physical version can request it directly from Tactical Tech.

Exposing the Invisible. Launched in 2013 and continuously developed since, Exposing the Invisible is a free, open-access resource hub for the global community of digital investigators, journalists, researchers, and citizen investigators. It offers guides, short films, video interviews, a podcast series, and workshop outlines that explore tools and methodologies for open-source investigation, verification, and responsible use of investigative techniques. The flagship resource is the Exposing the Invisible Kit — available in English, French, and Spanish — which has become a go-to reference for investigative training worldwide. More than 1,000 journalists, researchers, investigators, artists, and rights defenders have advanced their skills through the project, and over 217,000 people have accessed its online resources. Tactical Tech is actively seeking partner organisations to adapt and disseminate Exposing the Invisible resources in low- and middle-income countries.

The Influence Industry Project. This research strand advances knowledge of the global industry built around using personal data for political persuasion — the data brokers, communication consultants, and campaign technologists who work with political parties worldwide. The project's guidebook Personal Data: Political Persuasion (2019) sheds light on how voter data is collected, traded, and deployed, providing accessible analysis for voters, policymakers, political parties, and technology companies.

What the Future Wants. A youth-focused initiative that puts young people at the centre of conversations about their digital futures through education, co-creation, and capacity building. The interactive exhibition is available in over 14 languages and includes posters, interactive activities, and an Educators Guide. Organisations, libraries, and educators use the materials to engage young people in critical thinking about AI, technology, and the futures they want to live in.

Digital Enquirer Kit and media literacy. An e-learning interactive course covering media literacy, information verification, and safe internet navigation — aimed at civil society actors, community educators, and the interested public. Tactical Tech also conducts commissioned research in the Digital and Media Literacy Education (DMLE) field, using educator scoping sessions, literature review, and youth input to identify effective formats and methodologies.

Climate and technology. An emerging strand of Tactical Tech's work examines how digital technologies shape the way society understands — and fails to understand — the climate crisis, and how data-driven tools can spread confusion as well as clarity. Tactical Tech provides training, residencies, and masterclasses for professionals and decision-makers navigating this intersection, and produced the RePlaybook: A field guide to the climate and information crisis, now available for civil society organisations, educators, and local governments to adapt for their communities.

Access and Usage

All of Tactical Tech's educational resources — exhibitions, kits, guides, films, workshop curricula, and research — are freely available under Creative Commons licences at tacticaltech.org, and are designed to be adaptable, scalable, translatable, and localisable. The Data Detox Kit can be accessed at datadetoxkit.org; The Glass Room at theglassroom.org; and Exposing the Invisible at exposingtheinvisible.org. Partner organisations worldwide adopt and adapt the materials to meet their own community needs. Organisations interested in hosting a Glass Room, distributing the Data Detox Kit, or collaborating on Exposing the Invisible can contact Tactical Tech directly through its website. Tactical Tech publishes a monthly newsletter, In the Loop, covering new releases, open calls, partner events, and recommended resources. The organisation is funded by a range of international foundations and government agencies, including the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and the OAK Foundation, among others.