34C3 - Uncertain Concern

34c3 preroll music

Herald Angel (H): OK, probably a couple
years ago you realize that a lot of the

refugees coming up from Syria and North
Africa where we're communicating. We're

using technology in an interesting way to
find their way around a lot of the Border

Patrol's. A lot of the hurdles that were
put up in their way. In the US we have a

similar issue but it's different in many
ways with illegal immigrants trying to

stay underneath the radar. Allison
McDonald from the University of Michigan

is, has been studying how immigrants in
the States deal with technology and it's

very different from here. Her interests
are in technology, privacy, society and

human rights and I think we're gonna have
an awesome talk from her. So, well, please

welcome her and we'll get moving.
Applause

Allision McDonald: OK, thanks for coming.
I'm Allison from the University of

Michigan. I'm talking today primarily
about technology in immigration

enforcement and specifically about how the
immigrant community in the United States

is responding to those changes and
especially the undocumented community.

Before we get too far into the details I
just wanted to tell a little bit of a

story. This is Anna Maria she is not a
real person she is sort of a compositive

of many people that we spoke to but her
story is really representative of a lot of

people that we know are living in
the United States today. She and her

husband emigrated from Mexico about 12
years ago into the United States. She

really wanted to have children, but
couldn't get the fertility support that

she needed in Mexico so she came to the
United States. And now she and her husband

have two children who are attending US
public schools. She and her husband are

both working and saving up to buy a
house. They pay taxes; they attend church

every Sunday. They're involved in a lot of
community events and are really integrated

into the local community. One
difference from Anna Maria and a lot of

other people is that she's in the United
States as an undocumented immigrant. What

this means is that she either entered the
United States without legal authorization

or she came on a Visa and overstayed the
allotted time. That means that day to day

she has to worry about being found and
deported back to Mexico, removed from her

home and this puts her in quite a
precarious situation trying to live a

normal life, a life similar to a lot of
other people in our communities. But with

this constant concern that this life
could be taken away from her if she's

detected. Other than this this one point
she really lives this immigration story

that the United States loves to tell. We
love to have this narrative of people

being able to come to the United States
and build lives for themselves that they

might not be able to build in their
origin countries. And that's exactly

what she's done. But just as natural to
this immigration story is a history of a

lot of discrimination, racism and
xenophobia. All the way back in the 1700s

we've had legislation that prevents people
from becoming citizens based on their

origin country. We've had, for example,
the Chinese Exclusion Act preventing

people from China laborers coming to the
United States entirely. The Asiatic barred

zone a couple years later just drew a box
on a map and said the people in this

region can't immigrate to the United
States. We've also seen things like the

Johnson Reed Immigration Act in the 1900s
where the the US took census data from

before a big wave of immigration putting a
quota system in place that essentially

prevented people from eastern and southern
Europe from coming to the United States.

This history of discrimination and racism
continues to today. Many of you, I'm sure

have heard of what's happening now with
the so-called Muslim ban where a list of

seven countries are now blacklisted.
Immigrants are unable to enter the

country. And this is just another data
point to show the trend that our discourse

and immigration policy in the United
States is often racialized. I want to talk

a little bit about what immigration
enforcement actually looks like in the

United States. The agency that manages
enforcement is called the US Immigration

and Customs Enforcement or ICE. They're in
charge of enforcing within the borders

once people have already entered the
country, finding people without

documentation or managing immigration
cases. Over the last couple of decades

they've really been gaining in size and
power. This is anything from the removal

of privacy restrictions on sharing data
between federal agencies to an increase in

financial resources after 9/11. And this
is happening even today. President Trump

back in January had an executive order
that is looking to add another 5,000

agents to their current 20,000 over the
next couple of years. So this is an agency

that's continuing should be bolstered. And
another way that they're changing,

recently, is the way that they're
integrating technology into their jobs.

This photo in particular shows a
fingerprint scanner. The collection of

biometric data is becoming really common
in immigration enforcements. And it's not

just when someone's taken into an
immigration office but mobile fingerprint

scanners are being taken into communities.
There are stories of people having their

biometric data taken, even without arrest.
Being stopped in the street or being near

someone who's being detained for a
particular reason. Everyone in the area or

everyone in the household having their
biometric data taken. We've also seen the

removal of some restrictions on how this
data can be shared between federal

agencies. In particular President Trump
has reinstated the Secure Communities

Program which allows local police officers
when they're booking people for local

crimes or in local jails to take biometric
data and cross-check it against federal

immigration databases and crime databases.
We're also seeing evidence that,... So

DHS, is the Department of Homeland
Security the umbrella organization over

ICE. We have recently seen through a
Freedom of Information request that this

organization has used cell-site simulators
or stingrays over 1,800 times in the last

five years. We don't know all of the cases
where these have been used. And we really

can't speculate these cases are shrouded
in secrecy and we don't know when and how

they're being used. But we do have one
case, it's actually close to my home in

Detroit Michigan where an undocumented
man, ICE was able to send a warrant to

Facebook to get his phone number and then
use that phone number with a cell site

simulator to track him to his home and
ended up deporting him to El Salvador.

We're also seeing this move to start
collecting social media data at the

borders. This isn't just for people on
temporary visas but also nationlised

citizens and people with permanent
residency cards. This might not be so

relevant to people who are already in the
country because they're not crossing the

border regularly, but this might be
impactful if they have friends and family

crossing borders to visit them. And new
immigrants as well. This is a database

that we don't really know what it's being
used for yet. But there are some hints in

the way that, for example, ICE has been
soliciting contracts from big data

companies to create algorithms to do this
extreme vetting to be able to find

suspicious activity or suspicious people
from troves of social media data. In fact

we have already seen some of these
contracts being awarded. There was a 3

million contract recently given to a
company called Giant Oak who claims to

take big data and find bad guys. Their
creepy slogans, "We see the people behind

the data" 'trademark'. And this is just
another example of the way that technology

is being used to... in ways that are sort
of unpredictable at this point but

we have many examples where this
style of research can often be

discriminatory. And it might be expected
that at this point in time technologies

ending up integrated into law enforcement
in the way that it's being integrated into

a lot of different parts of our lives. But
there's a reason that this moment in

particular is so frightening. This
administration's making it abundantly

clear what they think of immigration. Just
in less than a year so far we've seen the

repeal of the deferred action for
Childhood Arrivals Program which you might

also hear as the DREAM Act or people here
talking about Dreamers. This is a program

that allowed people who entered the
country under the age of 16 to get work

permits and driver licenses and attend
university and have their immigration

cases delayed so long as they're meeting
educational goals. We've seen the

elimination of privacy protections from
sharing data between federal agencies. And

in addition to the actual concrete policy
changes, we're hearing a lot of really

nasty rhetoric around immigrants and
immigration. That's causing a lot of

concern among people who are in the
immigrant community or who are allies to

the immigrant community about what this
means in terms of harassment and hatred

even beyond the the legal changes. We're
also seeing a change in deportation

practices while Obama was prolific in
deportations. He had a very explicit

policy in place that the priority
deportations would be people who were

national security threats whatever that
might mean, or people with serious

criminal records, or people who had just
recently entered the United States. That

policy is being removed and we're seeing
more and more people who are deported

after living in the United States for a
long time with family and friends and

lives built in the communities; who might
have family or children who are US

citizens who don't have criminal records.
So what does this mean for Anna Maria? For

one without a criminal record. She
previously might have been able to have

some high amount of confidence that she
wouldn't be a priority target and that

confidence is being eroded. We're
seeing lots of people who previously

wouldn't have been targeted be deported
regardless of their clean record, and lack

of action that really makes them more
visible than they have been in the past.

She and her husband are starting to think
about, what happens to their children if

they're deported. They have to make the
decision because the children were born in

the United States, they're US citizens.
They have to decide whether they should

give custody to friends and family who can
stay in the United States, or if they

should take them back to Mexico, rather
than letting them stay and get the US

education that they want to have. She has
to be concerned about ICE being in her

community and outside of her home.
Possibly having her fingerprints taken if

she's in the wrong place at the wrong
time. She might have to worry about

friends and family from Mexico visiting,
and crossing the border, and having social

media data taken from them. That, I mean,
as we all know, might indicate a lot more

than just about the person who's crossing
the border. Our social media lives give a

lot of information about her networks that
might expose information about her. It's

also worth noting that Anna Maria is far
from alone. There are as many as 11

million undocumented immigrants in the
United States today. Over 2/3 of them have

been in the United States for more than 10
years which means they're integrated into

our communities, they own houses, they
have jobs, they pay taxes, they live

really normal lives to the extent that
they can in the United States. They've

built their lives here. So with this
context in mind, I and some of my

collaborators were wondering, how this is
really changing the way that people use

technology? Or if it is, given the sort of
objectively heightened risk that they're

facing day to day. We wanted to know
whether or not there's any sort of

reaction to those changes happening in
their daily lives. We reached out to some

immigration support organizations, so
immigrant rights and activist's

organizations and worked with them to be
able to communicate with this community.

In the end, we were able to talk to 17
undocumented immigrants in the Midwest. We

were primarily asking them about how they
manage risk in their daily lives offline,

as well as online. And whether or not
that's changing over the last year or two

years, when this discourse around
immigration is really changing, and then

whether these changes that we're seeing,
are causing them to maybe react in the way

that they're using technology. I can tell
you a little bit about who we spoke to.

The majority were women, 14 of our 17
participants were women. Most of them were

in their mid 30s, average age 35. And lots
of them had children. So it was a lot of

parents. Everyone that we spoke to, had
been in the United States for more than 10

years. So they really had their lives and
their communities here. And most of them

were also from Mexico. That's about
consistent with the immigrant community in

the United States, especially from Latin
America. The majority are from Mexico. And

then there was a mix of immigration
stories. Some of the people we spoke to

had crossed the southern border by foot or
otherwise. And some people had overstayed

visas, had flown to the United States and
stayed. So we wanted to first get an idea

of how they're managing and sort of
thinking about risk in their daily lives

offline to get a sense of how deeply it
impacts the way that they're living. What

we found across the board is that
immigration is a really sort of looming

presence in their lives. They think a lot
about how they're exposing themselves, and

that possibly exposing their status to
authority figures. And they put like a lot

of careful consideration into how to keep
a low profile. Driving is one really good

example of this cost-risk cost-benefit
analysis that they're doing. Most people

we spoke to you talked about driving one
way or another, and about half chose to

drive and half chose not to. Most of the
people don't have driver's licenses for

the United States because it's difficult
to get them without legal immigration

papers. So the risk with driving is that
if you're stopped, if you're pulled over,

even if you didn't have a traffic
violation, if you stop for a taillight or

something. The routine is to ask for a
documentation of your license. And if you

don't have that there might be more
questions, and in the end, you could

expose yourself to immigration or other
legal law enforcement. Some people really

thought that the risk was worth it. To
live their lives how they want to. They're

going to try to just not think about the
risk and do what they need to do day to

day. Other people felt that the risk was
too great and chose not to drive at all.

And that's a significant sacrifice,
especially in the United States where our

public transportation systems aren't
fantastic. This might mean that they can't

set their own work schedules, or they
can't take their kids to school if they

miss the bus. So it's a significant risk.
But it's also a big sacrifice if they

choose not to drive. People also think a
lot about how they're exposing themselves

to authority figures. As one example, the
decision to file taxes or not is a big

risk. So in the United States, you don't
need to have any sort of government ID to

file taxes, you just need a tax ID. So a
lot of these people are filing taxes. But

in order to do that, they are giving up to
the federal government their names, their

addresses, their employment history,
contact information. And some people think

that that risk is worth it, right. Because
this person for example feels like, by

paying taxes every year they're able to
establish a good history of upstanding

behavior. They can maybe have a better
case for getting a legal status if the

time comes, when that's an option. And
another example of, you know, exposing

information to authorities, might be
filing for benefits for US born children,

or even library cards, or local ID cards.
And the risk is going to be different in

each case depending on what they're
exposing. Some people chose to forego

significant benefits to avoid giving that
information to authorities. This person is

talking about DACA, the deferred action
for childhood arrival program. This would

make it much easier for their son to go to
college, give their son hopefully if they

trust the program, a much more reliable
immigration status. They wouldn't

technically have a legal immigration
status but they would be sort of assured

that their status, or rather their
immigration case is a low priority. They

wouldn't be targeted. And as long as
they're attending universities, they could

have confidence. So the program says that
they wouldn't be targeted. These people

were concerned because in order to file
that paperwork for their son, they had to

give up a lot of information about
themselves: their phone numbers, their

names, their addresses. And in the end,
they decided not to do it. And

unfortunately, only weeks after we spoke
to this person, the DACA program was

repealed. This has led a lot of people to
be concerned because the people who did

apply for the program, have given that
information to the government, to the

Immigration services in particular. And at
this point in time, we have no assurances

that that information won't be used in
immigration cases. At the moment, there's

just a sort of FAQ page that says, we
don't use this information now but we

reserve the right to change that at any
time without telling anyone. People are

also really feeling the changes that are
happening in the last couple of months.

Well, it's been too many months, the last
year and a half. They're feeling the

pressure in their communities for
immigration services being, or immigration

enforcement being more present and less
predictable. Of one person described

feeling like, instead of coming to take a
particular person, they're just coming and

looking for anyone who might be
undocumented. Many people that we spoke

to, had negative experiences with ICE.
Including,... if it weren't,... if they

hadn't had to experience themselves, lots
of people had friends and family who had

negative experiences. And they're feeling
this increase in presence of enforcement

in their communities. And this is leading
them to make significant changes to the

way that they're living their lives. For
example, one person we spoke to talked

about how they won't leave their child at
home alone anymore because they're worried

that, while they're out, their child; if
they're picked up while they're out, and

the child's at home alone, they might be
left there. Or ICE might even show up at

the house while the child's there alone.
They don't want either of those things to

happen. So people are changing a lot of
the ways that they live day to day. And

this is a very present concern, in the way
that they talk about their daily lives. So

we were wondering if this is true when
they think about the way that they use

technology and what they're doing online.
First, let me just give you an overview of

what sort of technologies they primarily
use. This community is really mobile

heavy. Some people had computers in the
home. A lot of people had access to

computers through local libraries and
things. But everyone had a smartphone and

they were very dependent on it. Some
people used email but when they spoke

about email, it was mostly to do with
communicating with their kids schools or

doctor's appointments. It wasn't really a
social thing. So the majority of what we

spoke to people about, were social media
tools. In particular, all but one of our

participants were active users of
Facebook. Most people were using WhatsApp

and Facebook Messenger, as well. These are
the three primary tools that people had

the most to say about. There were some
other tools that they were on: Instagram,

Twitter, and Snapchat. But really, the
overarching, sort of a sense that people

had about these tools is that it's
bringing significant benefits to their

daily lives. Especially, when you think
about this community being separated

permanently from a lot of their friends
and family back home, or their former

home, their origin country. What they had
to do before, maybe sending photos in the

mail or through post cards, buying
international calling cards, being able to

call people with video chat now is a
significant improvement to their ability

to keep in touch with people back in
Mexico or in wherever their... the origin

country is. People also talked about, how
it's improving their lives in other ways.

For example, being able to organize their
own work schedules, and have more control

over the way that they're employed. The
benefits go on and on, and it's a lot of

the same things that we've experienced
over the last decade, and the way that our

lives have changed for the better. Because
we're able to use these technologies. When

we ask people about risk, the things that
really pop into their heads first, are

hackers. They're really concerned about
fraud and identity theft. And they think a

lot about their children contacting
strangers on the internet, or accessing

inappropriate content. But that's not to
say that concerns related to their status,

their illegal status were absent. They're
just much less certain. You know, it's

easy to think about the consequences of
identity theft. That's sort of concrete.

But a lot of these status related concerns
were less concrete. People talked about

harassment as well, being something that's
increasing in the real world, as well as

online. In particular participating in
communities, or in conversations online

that may be expose their immigration
status. This harassment has moved online.

They're experiencing it in the real world,
as well, but they're hearing stories or

having stories themselves about people
threatening them with immigration

enforcement. That's increasing over the
last year or so. There are a couple of

ways that people manage these risks.
Primarily, what we found people really

thought about, is their concrete steps to
managing their privacy online were fairly

basic things like, making sure that they
only accept friends and family on

Facebook. They might have set their
profile to private. But they're really not

fiddling with these more fine-grained
privacy settings. They're not, you know,

sharing particular posts only to
particular people, or using that. They

were talking about, they didn't tell us
about using these, like private groups or

anything like that to sort of create
separate spheres of friends and family.

And channel management, just in the sense
that like, even though they think about

curating this, like close network of
friends and family, they're still really

thoughtful about what they post in which
channel. Whether like it's safe to put a

photo, for example on their wall, or you
know, in their timeline versus sending it

directly to family. This person, for
example, even after they post something

publicly, publicly being, you know. within
their Facebook wall, they'll still go back

to a couple days later and just delete
everything because they're not totally

confident that that's private. Another
really interesting thing is that in all of

this, the conversations we had, no one
really expressed the sense that they

understood that they're really living on
Facebook. The tools that they're using

like almost exclusively, are all owned by
the same company. No one also express any

sort of sense that these companies are
entities in themselves that might have

interest in access to their data. Much
less one that cooperates with law

enforcement. That concern didn't appear in
any of our conversations. They tend to

think about these platforms as being sort
of a medium to communicate with other

people. You know, the way that they use
it, is to talk to other individuals, or

groups of individuals. But the platform
doesn't seem to be like a repository for

data. In fact, they are expressing
significant trust in Facebook, Facebook in

particular. A lot of people were grateful
for the changes that Facebook's made over

the last year or two, in terms of account
management. So they're grateful that if

there's a suspicious login attempt,
they'll be able to stop it. That's helped

a lot of people. And that sort of
generates trust in these platforms. And

the sense that Facebook really has their
back. In addition to sort of managing the

way that they're sharing information, we
did see some people choosing to abstain

from sharing. Especially, when it came to
topics around immigration. Some people

chose to not join, you know, public
Facebook groups, or get information from

certain places because they were afraid
that by associating with these groups,

they might indicate something publicly
about their status. And that's frustrating

for a lot of people who want to
participate in these conversations, and

especially, because the discourse around
immigration is so toxic in the United

States. Some people express this feeling
that they have to just sit there and take

this discourse happening around them
without participating, because they're

worried about being targeted, or harassed,
or maybe even like having physical

consequences: being followed, or having
immigration sent to their house if someone

were to find them. Some people expressed
the opposite, though, which is

encouraging, right? Some people felt that,
even though the risk is there, it's more

important for them to share their thoughts
than it is for them to be tiptoeing around

immigration enforcement. This is also
really interesting because this sort of

exposes sometimes family tensions about
these topics. This is a really, it's a

mixed status community, meaning that
sometimes parents will be undocumented and

children will be US citizens. Or lots of
people have friends and family who have a

different legal status than they do. So
risk is really distributed. You know, it's

not just individual, it's within families
and within communities. And there can be a

lot of tension between, you know, children
and parents, or friends, you know,

siblings, about how they share information
on these platforms. Some people are much

more conservative with what they share.
And this quote also reveals something else

kind of interesting. When we talk to
people about concerns about immigration,

it's very rarely that they talk about
whether immigration will be able to

investigate them, as much as it is about
when, which is this final point that

there's really this sense of resignation
in the community about what information

immigration enforcement has about them.
Lots of people feel like, it doesn't

really matter what they do. Immigration
can know where they are and what they're

doing. They can find them if they just
decide to. It's just a matter of whether

immigration enforcement is going to choose
to come after them, rather than whether

they can. This is also true with the way
that they think about technology. They

have a sense that there's really no
privacy. If immigration decided to, they

would be able to see the messages on
Facebook, they could see what was

physically on their phones, that they have
this sort of all-powerful, you know,

toolkit to access their digital
information. And honestly, this story in

particular, this sense of surveillance
comes from experience often. This person

had a really negative experience with ICE,
you know, coming and talking to her

family. And ICE knowing things that they
hadn't told anyone. Somehow ICE had known

things that they were keeping very
private. And so there's this assumption

that, well, it's happened to me before,
I've seen it happen to my friends, they

probably could know anything they want to.
But it's not all negative, it's not all

resignation. Another thing that we saw,
many people, not everyone, but maybe half

of the people we spoke to, had this really
strong sense that there was this

responsibility to share things in the
community to help each other. There's this

growing sense of community identity. And
this might mean sharing information about

resources for the immigrant community or
sharing information about workshops, or

events, vigils, but also information about
immigration enforcement. If ICE is in a

particular community, they might tell
their friends and family, avoid this area

until further notice. They're helping each
other, they're sending information. So, it

can't be total resignation. There's still
this sort of beam of hope that they're

helping each other. And they must have
hope that they can do something because

they are. And this has been something that
has become faster and easier with

technology, too, right? It's much easier
to send a message than it is to call, or

to spread information before we had, you
know, smartphones. But all of this really

leads to the question: Considering how
much they inconvenience themselves in

their daily lives offline, why are they
doing comparatively little online to

change their practices, or to reduce their
visibility? I don't think it's enough

that, although lots of people expressed
this sense that they're like relatively

low-tech literate. That in and of itself
isn't really enough of an explanation,

right? There are so many different factors
into the way that they're making these

decisions, and they're thinking carefully
about the decisions they do make. So we

have some thoughts on this. It really
can't be understated how much of a benefit

technology is to this community. It's
making a significant difference in the way

that they live their lives. So the choice
to abstain is not trivial. The risk that

they're facing by using like Facebook, by
putting phone numbers on Facebook, or

sharing photos of their family and
friends, and like, building these online

networks, is, really the risk involved in
that is uncertain, right? At this point we

have really sparse data about direct
connections between the use of technology,

or the use of social media and immigration
enforcement, and consequences. Maybe that

will change, but at this point it's
unclear which changes might be actually

beneficial, right? Because there's not a
direct connection between using this tool,

putting this information online, and
immigration enforcement showing up.

There's also the significant trust in the
platforms that they're using and their

peers are using as well and there just
tends to be less critical thought about

the safety of using platforms when there's
already this component of trust. Facebook

has done a lot for account security for
example over the last couple of years and

has built trust in this community. And as
well as having you know all of your

community on a tool when they're all there
together there's like less of a, less

critical thought about whether they're
it's safe to be there. And there is this

component of resignation when we've sort
of pushed people to think really

explicitly about the risk with immigration
enforcement, being in sharing information

on social media using technology there was
the sense that if they wanted to - they

could have the information, I mean, they
already have it in a lot of ways when

they're filing taxes or just you know it's
accessible to authorities is the general

sense of regardless of what they do
online. So this kind of in combination

with the uncertain risk it makes it really
hard to make concrete steps towards

changes that might be helpful. So finally,
I just wanted to share a couple of things

that I learned especially as a digital
security trainer and doing this study.

Most importantly everyone that we spoke to
was really excited to learn. That's just

general like tech literacy but also
security and privacy. People really care

and they're excited. And everyone
expressed gratitude that we were talking

to them about this topic. They care a lot.
But so what was difficult for me having a

background in trainings was still being
surprised by things that in these

conversations that thinking I knew what
they wanted or what they needed and that

not being the case. So one thing I would
say is you know don't assume that you know

what's best for them or even what they
want or need. Go and talk to people

they're really you'll learn a lot from
talking to people about what they think

their risk is versus what they're doing.
For example something that I was surprised

to learn is that they're really not using
online resources when they have concerns

about online privacy. They're talking to
their kids and they're talking to their

neighbors and their friends. So for this
community in particular it would be really

much more effective to go into an in-
person training. A training in Spanish in

this case. In the language that they're
naturally speaking and have like in-person

resources that will get you much further
than you know compiling lists of ideas or

tools or strategies, that'll probably
never be accessed. And as a vehicle to do

this, when we had a really positive
experience working with support

organizations, on the front end that
allowed us to build trust with the

community, so by working with people who
they already trusted and who already knew

them well I really think we were able to
talk to people much more openly and much...

with much more trust than they would have
otherwise. Whether they would have spoken

to us at all is a question. They also were
a great resource for us as we were

developing interview materials and also
like training materials afterwards when we

went back to communities and conducted
digital trainings. They helped us develop,

you know, culturally sensitive language
and we were able to just ask, you know, is

this location is this style of
presentation, is this length, is this time

what should we do you know they were a
resource to us to make sure that the

things that we were developing were most
accessible to the people that we're

talking to. And, they also themselves from
what I've seen have a lot of questions

about the way that they're using
technology. That's a great place to go and

talk to people about, you know,
organizational practices. And you might

find that it's a lot easier to get people
to change their practices if they're in

sort of an organizational setting where
there's peer pressure or maybe some

hierarchy of people who are really
encouraging them to use more secure tools

or to think carefully about data
they're collecting about people that they

contact. So working with these
organizations also might be an opportunity

to do trainings with activists and with
lawyers and with other people who are

working alongside this community. Finally,
which is always a difficult thing to hear

as a trainer, the people we spoke to
probably aren't going to be adopting new

tools for one it might not be safe, it's
hard to make that calculus right, but a

tool that's specifically designed for a
community at risk or in order to do a

particular function that would be of
interest to, for example, the undocumented

community or some other vulnerable
community might increase visibility

depending on the threat model. If they're
found with a particular app or if the app

is like exposing number of users or
location of users, for example. And it's

not to say that we should stop developing
new tools we should always think about

ways to make better and safer and more
private resources. But it's worth thinking

especially if you're going to be working
with communities or building resources for

communities that we should think also
about how to make sure that they're using

the tools they are already used more
effectively and more safely. That might

mean sitting down with someone for a while
and going to their privacy settings on

Facebook or, you know, making sure that
their settings on Whatsapp, make don't

back up data to the cloud or expose phone
numbers to people they don't know. But

there's a lot to do in both of these
directions. And especially if you're going

to be moving into working with these
communities, this is something to keep in

mind, that I thought was especially
poignant. For that I can take questions.

applause
Herald angel (H): So we have four

microphones in this room. I see one is
already occupied with somebody. May I

remind you that a question is typically
one to two sentence and ends with a

question mark. And with that I
will take microphone 4.

Mic4: Hi, thanks! You mentioned that these
communities are reluctant to adopt new

tools. Were there any exceptions to that
or were there any like attributes of new

tools that you think they would be more
likely to adopt?

Allison: Yeah that's a good question! I
I've been thinking about this. I would say

that this is absolutely true what I said
about reluctance to adopt new tools when

it's when we're talking about social
media. So it's difficult to like move

people to Signal for example from Whatsapp
or Facebook Messenger because the people

they talk to are already on these tools
and it's not just moving one person but

like a community. If we start to think
about tools that might be special-purpose

we didn't talk to anyone who mentioned
this app but I know in the past there have

been discussions about ways being used
it's like a crowd-sourced map system being

used to like track law enforcement. Like I
said we didn't talk to anyone who used

that app but possibly if there's like a
specific utility in it there could be some

critical mass of people who spread the
word in a smaller community. Yeah it's

something to think about. I don't think
it's impossible but I would say it would

be challenging.
H: I assume that the baby doesn't want to

speak on microphone 1 so I'm gonna go to a
microphone 3.

Mic3: I have two questions is that okay?
Allison: Yeah.

Mic3: Thank you. The first one is kind of
a nitty-gritty academic question and that

is: can you tell us anything about your
IRB approval process, what you're doing to

protect subjects data? Because this is
very sensitive and I'm curious how you've

approached that.
Allison: Yeah absolutely. So we didn't

have IRB approval before we spoke to
anyone. We actually got an exemption for

collecting data about participants. So we
compensated for each interview that we

did, we gave participants $20. We were not
required to collect any proof of payment

we recorded the interviews and encrypted
them locally. They were translated by

people in our research group and then
transcribed with all identifying location

and name data redacted. And, that those
were all stored encrypted on our personal

drives and then in a University Drive. All
the data has been deleted now all of the

original data as well.
Mic3: Awesome! Thanks. The other one is a

big picture scatterbrain question: which
is about how this is a technological

solution to a political problem. Do you
feel that directing or helping immigrants

understand how to protect themselves
technologically, is the answer or

necessarily part of the answer or do you
feel like maybe eventually our community

needs to be helping people exit places
like the U.S. that are increasingly

hostile to immigrants?
Allison: That's a good question. I don't

think that helping people be more safe
online is really a solution. I mean the

solutions gonna be in policy and in law. I
think this is a utility really in the

short term is like making sure people feel
safe and like have more control over

disclosure to the extent that they can.
But I don't think that's going to,... I

don't think that's a winning, you know,
single pronged battle. As for leaving the

United States that's kind of a funny
question considering how much people have

sacrificed to come to the U.S. and
especially having integrated into

communities already. A lot of the people I
spoke about today were long-term residents

I mean everyone was a long-term resident.
So they've sort of built their lives in

the U.S. But there has been a significant
decrease in the number of people

immigrating to the U.S. without
authorization that's thanks to Obama era

policies of like, you know, return
immediately at the border so whether

people are now moving to other countries
is a good question and whether we should

encourage that is... I don't know,
interesting.

Mic3: Thank you
H: Microphone 2.

Mic2: Hi, so I have a questions: Are there
any initiatives to help the people in a

way that so,.. The fact that they don't...
they feel that they are less risk online

and they don't perceive the risk as much
and do you feel that helping them

understanding those risk and maybe trying
to be more secure online will actually

help them or is there a resignation
towards the government accurate?

Allison: If you're thinking about specific
people I think,... Maybe when individual's

information is going to be accessible in
the long run if immigration enforcement

really chooses to maybe that sense of
resignation to some extent is accurate but

lots of people aren't necessarily on the
radar. And I think what's most beneficial

about helping people understand how to use
technology more effectively and like

that's really just increasing confidence.
It's this uncertainty and like choosing to

abstain from participating in
conversations because they just don't

trust that they can be secure, like
private enough. You know or that their

personal information, their home addresses
that they they're still at risk of this

harassment like that's... That lack of
confidence and privacy is really what I

think can be helped and... Sorry I had
another point. Yeah, but if it's worthwhile

you know thinking about how you can
contribute to helping. I mean even

outside of like privacy work, a lot of
people really just are eager to learn more

about how to use technology like to help
their lives. Right, so the other thing I

was going to say was, we also put
significant thought into whether or not,

you know, how to have these conversations
with people and like how to ask questions

about, you know, the risks online without
really freaking them out. Because we

didn't really have solutions. It's not
like at the end of an interview we could

say like well we have a solution for you
just install this app and you'll be safe.

So, it's sort of this balance between
making sure that people still, you know,

use tools in the way that's so helpful for
their lives. Right like we don't want them

to stop using Facebook if it means that
they stop talking to their parents back in

Mexico. We don't want them to stop using
email if it means that they can't talk to

their kid's teachers anymore. So it's this
balance between like being aware of the

risk and being confident that you're doing
as much as you can while not choosing to

abstain.
H: So I'm hiding here in the corner

because I'm trying to see whether
somebody's at number four? There's

somebody there yes. So Mic4 please.
Mic4: Thanks. Hi, so I was wondering since

Facebook is the most popular tool that
they use and they probably won't change

it, did you find anything that the people
at Facebook could do to help undocumented

immigrants more?
Allison: Yeah, I think the things that

Facebook can think about are really
generalizable to a lot of vulnerable

communities. People, there were a few
things in particular that some people are

really uncomfortable with, for example,
Whatsapp if you're added to like a group

of people your phone number is exposed to
everyone else in the group, without your

consent and that might be the case with
like group SMS and things. But like, the

fact that Whatsup even uses a phone number
is kind of something that we should

migrate out of, right. Facebook collecting
phone numbers and collecting, you know,

location data regardless of how easy it is
to opt in and out. And so, this is

primarily an academic work that's going to
appear at the HCI, a human-computer

interaction conference, and we talk a lot
in the paper about what these bigger

services can do. And really like we as a
community can advocate for Facebook

resisting cooperating with law enforcement
right. I mean it shouldn't really matter

to Facebook where you live or or how you
got there. They're a social media platform

they shouldn't be, you know, helping
immigration move people around physical

borders. They should be totally you know
border agnostic. So advocating for that

kind of attitude shift would be helpful
H: Microphone 2

Mic2: So thank you for the very
interesting talk. And I have a question

that sort of picks up on the previous one.
And because it's, you talk about it

Facebook has become such an important sort
of a political actor in this arena. I'm

wondering if you've been following up on
that as a survey research problem like

what's, what is there, what is it that
they are doing and is this something

that's happening unwittingly or is there
something about the general strategy of

Facebook that surf helps create this kind
of trust. And I'm also wondering, going,

taking that question further, sorry it's
more than a sentence that,

if you've been thinking about is if you
see anything sort of suddenly eroding that

trust in the future, and I'm specifically
thinking about this now, this question

about how it was possible for all this
Russian money to go into Facebook

advertisements and that served, that's
kind of point in the direction of pressure

for Facebook to be less serve general in
their trust and picking up on certain, on

specific political issues which could also
be immigration and disclosing some

information that they already have?
A: Your question about whether there could

be a shift in trust in the future if
something could trigger that. The example

in Detroit right where law enforcement was
able to get a phone number from Facebook

with a warrant and then track the person
with this phone number. If there are more

and more cases of social media data being
used in immigration cases and there's

evidence to think that that might happen.
It's possible that narrative might

overtake this sense that people have right
now that Facebook's looking out for them

by keeping their account, you know,
there's that letting them control it. In

terms of Facebook picking up immigration
as a sort of an activist or a political

topic that they're interested in, I would
now hold my breath on that one, but we'll

see. Yeah.
H: So we have time for exactly one more

question and that is on Mic 1.
Mic1: Hi, did you collect any information

or study anything about how these people
were using financial services and such

things like online payments? Did they have
bank accounts, were they concerned about

their financial privacy?
A: Yeah, actually people, the concerns

they have with privacy and in terms of the
way that they were using like online

banking because people were I mean using
credit cards and online banking and paying

rent, you know, or utilities online. They
didn't talk about privacy much in that

context except that they have this concern
about their financial information being

stolen by hackers. Right, like the concern
is for other people rather than the

entities that are providing these
services. And I think a lot of the concern

there is coming from the fact that they
have a lot to lose and very few legal

protections should something bad happened
to them. But, yeah, so just generally like

people were using online banking and had
bank accounts and were using these online

financials services. Some people were
opting out but it wasn't due to privacy

concerns it was because they were worried
about using their credit card on the

Internet.
H: So with that I'd like you to help me to

thank our speaker Allison for this
wonderful talk.

Applause

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