A

• Accessibility: The approach or extent to which a person or community can access resources, information and spaces. This includes physical and virtual realms, emphasising the collective responsibility to address systemic barriers to ensure accessibility rather than burden the individual or community experiencing a lack of access due to systems of oppression (Sukuamis, 2023).
• Accompaniment: Mentoring civil society organisations to build sustainable digital protection practices.
• Accompanied organisation: Organisation, collective or network engaged in a Digital Protection Accompaniment.
• Aggression and violence: Events in which an individual is harassed, threatened, or physically or mentally attacked.
• Attack: Attempts “to close the socio-political space” in which human rights defenders work, including “literal physical spaces, as well as economic, social, technological, legal or environmental space, among others” (Higson Smith, Ò Cluanaigh, Ravi & Steudner, 2016: 20).

B

• Bullying: All forms of ongoing and deliberate intimidating behaviour of one or more individuals directed against another individual or group through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour with an intention of causing harm. Bullying relies on misuse of power, real or perceived, where those who are being harmed feel unable to stop it from happening.

C

• Capacity: “Strengths and resources a group or defender can access to achieve a reasonable degree of security” (Eguren & Caraj, 2009: 29).
• Civil Society Computer Incident Response Center (CiviCERT): Launched in 2015, CiviCERT is a network of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), rapid responders, and independent Internet Content and Service Providers (ICSPs) who support civil society in preventing and addressing digital security incidents. DDP is a member of CiviCERT.
• Climate Justice Approach: A political, social, and ethical framework that understands the climate crisis results from capitalism and its compounding and intersecting systemic injustices. According to this framework, overcoming the climate crisis requires an intersectional social justice approach that puts the leadership, solutions and needs of those most affected at the centre (Sukuamis, 2023).
• Collaboration: A strong commitment towards fostering solidarity, connection, cooperation and a sense of community in convening spaces. DDP understands that epistemic violence and injustice are barriers to true collaboration. We value different knowledge, aim to decentre dominant discourses and encourage the inclusion of marginal modes of knowledge production and consumption.
• Community Building: Set of practices aimed at creating, strengthening or facilitating communities of individuals or collectives gathered under a common need or interest or within a geographical area.
• Community and Network Fund: DDP fund to support initiatives from rapid responders and digital security facilitators.
• Confidentiality: A commitment to handling all incoming information responsibly and protecting it against inadvertent disclosure to unauthorised parties. In any remote coordination or online initiatives, secure and encrypted channels running on Free/Libre and Open-Source Software are a priority. Commercial or proprietary tools will be avoided as much as possible, especially if they have a history of violating users’ privacy.
• Crisis: Profound and detrimental change in a political, economic or social process. DDP understands crisis as an event that (1) poses a serious threat to the DDP team members or Hivos/DDP reputation; (2) severely disrupts normal operations, including physical and psychosocial events; (3) requires a quick or immediate intervention and response; (4) requires coordinated and efficient management of procedures and resources, whether human, material or logistical, that is beyond the capability of the local office/programme where the event has occurred.

D

• Decolonial Approach: Political and epistemological positioning that seeks to highlight the ongoing legacy of colonial domination and direct effects on contemporary social systems and structures, all while developing strategies to overcome its consequences and dismantle it. Adopting this approach entails active efforts to not reproduce racism, colonialism and xenophobia in project implementation, budget allocation, team management, decision-making structures, training, and knowledge production.
• Digital Protection Facilitator (DPF): DDP team member in charge of facilitating an organisation’s Digital Protection Accompaniment over a period of time.
• Digital Protection Lead (DPL): DDP team member in charge of providing support to DPFs and facilitating cross-regional skill-sharing.
• Digital Attack: Actions or interventions of malicious actors to constrict or otherwise negatively impact the work, physical or psychological well-being of others through digital technologies. This can include intimidation in either offline or online spaces due to the nature of one’s work, gender-based violence online, and unauthorised access to emails, websites, and social media, among others.; targeted censorship, phishing and malware attacks; confiscating or destroying devices during protests or raids; identity fraud or theft; and internet shutdowns.
• Digital Protection Accompaniment model: In response to the trend of “box-checking” digital security trainings for human rights defenders, DDP developed a model consisting of a comprehensive programme of activities, including sustainable responses to threats, facilitation, and community building within the broader ecosystem of support to human rights defenders under digital siege.
• Digital Rights: “Human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks” (Wikipedia).
• Digital Security: “Protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorised information disclosure, theft of, or damage to hardware, software, or data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide” (Wikipedia).
• Digital Security Incident: “Any fact or event which you think could affect your personal or organisational security. Security incidents can be incidental or provoked intentionally or unintentionally” (Eguren & Caraj, 2009: 45-46).
• Disability Justice: “A social justice movement which focuses on examining disability and ableism as they relate to other forms of oppression and identity such as race, class and gender” (Wikipedia).
• Disaster: Sudden, unexpected and catastrophic events to the extent that existing resources are insufficient to avoid harmful results.
• Discrimination: Unfair or unequal treatment which makes distinctions between individuals or groups so as to disadvantage some and advantage others, on the basis of one or more individual or group attributes, or imputed characteristics or stereotypes. Discrimination can be direct, as when individuals or groups are unfavourably treated, or indirect, as when seemingly neutral policies or practices in actuality disadvantage certain groups.
• Diversity: Encompassing individual uniqueness and distinctions within communities and groups, diversity spans attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, and every facet that contributes to one’s identity, values, and experiences. DDP believes in the importance of diversity and inclusivity in our networks, teams, ideas and approaches. We work in a way that fosters non-discrimination, free expression, participation and equity.

E

• Ecosystem: Multitude of activists, collectives, organisations and networks with which we share common values, goals, and objectives. This includes those with a focus on digital rights, emergency response, Internet freedom, privacy rights, protection of human rights defenders, technological autonomy, and many more.
• Emergency: Sudden, unexpected and dangerous event that requires fast action with resources available to avoid harmful results.
• Equity: As a measure of justice, it refers to the fair treatment, access, opportunity, and protection of all people. DDP is committed to a feminist and intersectional approach as the epistemological basis for our analyses and the development of our programmes. Our approach to digital security and the overall protection of human rights defenders is developed through a lens which seeks to make visible the various layers of structural and discursive discrimination based on gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race identity, ethnicity, geography, language, culture, religion, caste, socioeconomic status, employment, age, dis/ability, and neuro(a)typicality, among other things.

F

• Feminist Approach: The political and epistemological positioning that seeks to highlight relations of patriarchal domination and their direct effects on contemporary social configurations and to mitigate its consequences.
• Free/Libre and Open Source Software: The software which is “freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software” (Wikipedia).
• Focal Point: Selected person to act as the liaison between the DPF and the accompanied organisation in a Digital Protection Accompaniment.
• Fund: Amount of money devoted to financially supporting DDP’s incident emergency mechanism, strengthening of organisational sustainable security practices and rapid response community building.

G

• Global Partnership Fund: DDP fund to support multi-regional initiatives with a global reach and local focus.
• Grassroots: Organisations, networks or movements in direct relation to local communities.

H

• Harassment: Conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating another person’s dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for another. It includes uninvited, unwelcome behaviour, which a reasonable person could anticipate would create intimidation, humiliation, or offence for others in those circumstances. Harassment often stems from the abuse of power and targets specific groups and identities.
• Holistic Approach: A positioning to security and protection of human rights defenders that recognises the need for and promotes an interdisciplinary understanding of political violence and the strategies needed to reduce it. This includes physical security, digital and information security, and self-care and well-being.
• Holistic Protection: Protection strategies developed with a holistic approach.
• Human Rights Defender: “Person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights” (Wikipedia).
• Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos): International cooperation organisation based in The Hague aimed at amplifying and connecting voices that promote social and environmental justice and challenge power imbalances. Hivos, a member of the Freedom Online Coalition, has hosted DDP since its creation in 2012.

I

• Incident Emergency Fund: DDP’s rapid response mechanism for human rights defenders, journalists, activists and organisations facing digital threats and attacks.
• Integrity: Commitment to transparency and accountability in all projects, outcomes, and decision-making processes. This entails documenting and sharing useful information with others and striving to establish fair and just processes in all relationships with donors, partners, grantees, consultants, and all other members across the ecosystem.
• International Programme: A global initiative within an organisation. DDP is an international programme hosted at Hivos. Centring a decolonial approach, DDP operates within a framework that prioritises the experience, knowledge, and autonomy of each region. We understand that those connected to the context, with the lived experiences, are best positioned to guide decision-making and contextually relevant strategies.
• Intersectional Approach: “Analytical framework for understanding how a person’s various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage.” (Wikipedia).
• Intervention: Any of the activities organised during the accompaniment process involving the organisation’s team members: workshops and trainings, conversations, and risk assessment sessions, among others.

J

• Journey of Change: A framework that guides an organisation’s efforts towards social justice by embracing an approach that acknowledges the inherently dynamic and non-linear nature of social change. It emphasises the imperative for adaptability, flexibility, and ongoing evolution in the pursuit of social justice. The Journey of Change is purposefully crafted to underpin a shared political vision of justice, ensuring its resonance and malleability while offering a clear collective roadmap (Sukuamis, 2023).

K

• Knowledge Management: Within DDP, all activities related to the production, edition, publication and distribution of content, including internal communications, policies, procedures, documentation of interventions, research, guides, handbooks, etc.

L

• LGBTQIA+: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual and + to “recognise the limitless sexual orientations and gender identities across the community” (The Human Rights Campaign).

M

• Malware: Malicious software “intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorised access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user’s computer security and privacy” (Wikipedia).
• Memorandum of Understanding: Agreement between parties detailing the object and scope of an intervention and establishing rights and obligations.
• Mentoring: Process through which DPFs accompany, train and coach focal points to become protection agents within their organisations.

N

• Not Claiming but Facilitating: Encouraging individuals, organisations and networks to have and take ownership of their own interventions and activities while supporting their strategies and efforts.
• No-Harm: The understanding that our programmes are not neutral in the contexts within which they are implemented, which are invariably characterised by injustice and conflict in various forms. Our goal is to prevent or limit unintended negative outcomes through a decolonial approach that, through DDP’s regionalisation, centres and prioritises the knowledge and solutions of the communities we work for and with.

O

• Openness: Attitude of curiosity, innovation, reflective, and transparent learning in our individual and collective work. It is a position against the extraction, exploitation, privatisation, control and restriction of resources and knowledge, emphasising the political dimension of making information accessible to the public and of adopting, developing and maintaining free/libre and open source tools that adapt and align with the evolving needs of the communities utilising them.
• Operations: All procedures that enable DDP to implement its projects.

P

• People-Centred: The well-being, autonomy, empowerment and dignity of the people we work for and with are of the utmost importance. In all our activities and engagements, we want to create safe and respectful spaces where people can engage the personal and the political and feel safe and empowered.
• Physical Security: Protection of the physical integrity of the organisation and its staff, including protection of the building, hardware, and physical files and documentation. Travel and other forms of logistical security for events and workshops also fall under this category.
• Political Ecology: Critical field of knowledge that examines how power relations and economic structure shape nature-society relations.
• Protection: “Condition or state of being kept safe from injury, damage, or loss” (Cambridge Dictionary).

R

• Risk: Possibility of negative events happening.
• Risk Analysis: (also called risk assessment or threat analysis) is a methodology to identify contextual threats and vulnerabilities of a situated subject and understand what capacities can be improved to be in a better position to respond to attacks, and mitigate their effects.
• Regional Partnership Fund: DDP fund to support initiatives promoting online freedom and digital protection for human rights defenders that operate in a single country or region.
• Regions: Each of the geographical areas in which DDP operates. As for 2024, these are Asia, Anglophone Africa, East Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, Francophone Africa and Latin America.
• Regionalisation: Decentralisation process of DDP operations through which regions gain autonomy in decision-making.
• Resilience: A profound response system encompassing social, community, individual, and systemic elements that enable a group to rebound, reconstruct, or adapt in the face of challenges while also acquiring knowledge and capabilities that empower it to confront contextual adversities with increased strength.

S

• Safety: Feeling of not being in danger. In contrast to security, it is a personal sensation of having under control all elements that could harm us.
• Secure: State of being protected against threats and attacks.
• Security: Protection against threats and attacks.
• Self-care and well-being: The recognition of, and strategies for, the psychological and psychosocial impacts of the risks which team members of human rights organisations face related to the work they carry out. Indeed, the risks of burnout, unhealthy internal conflicts, and staff turnover as a result of untreated institutional conflicts are even more of a risk to human rights organisations, as these organisations are often understaffed, underfunded, and working in dangerous environments.
• Social Justice: A long-term collective political vision of achieving a just society by dismantling systemic oppression and injustices (Sukuamis, 2023).
• Spyware: “Software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organisation and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device’s security, or other means” (Wikipedia).
• Sustainable Protection Fund: DDP fund to support human rights organisations, including journalists and grassroots and social movements, to build their digital security capacities over an extended period.
• Sustainability: Quality of being able to continue a process over time in balance with the available resources (economic, human, ecological, etc.).

T

• Threat: “Declaration or indication of an intention to inflict harm” (FrontLine Defenders, 2016).
• Threat Analysis: Read Risk Analysis.

V

• Vilification: Speech or writing that is disparaging, defaming, or abusive to another person or group.
• Vulnerability: “Any factor which makes it more likely for harm to materialise or result in greater damage” (Frontline Defenders, 2011:10).