Global Encryption Day 2022

It’s a pleasure for NNEDV’s Safety Net Team to mark Global Encryption Day 2022. In our contemporary world, it has been increasingly important for survivors to have access to secure online communication channels to make plans, store and send evidence, and seek help – all of which necessitates encryption. Encryption is the process of turning readable data to unreadable data. Encryption can be used to protect data stored on survivors’, service providers’, and consumer companies’ devices and accounts. Encryption is critical to survivors’ privacy and safety.

Some encryption methods are stronger than others. End-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption is uniquely strong because it means that data is secure on every step of its journey, and that even the companies providing the tools that we use to communicate online, such as email providers, Internet Service Providers, and database companies, cannot access the information. The safety and privacy of survivors is vital, and without secure encryption measures, they can be placed at further risk. Isolation is a common tactic of abuse, and survivors need secure methods to communicate with their friends and providers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the creation and popularization of many remote communications tools. These can be helpful for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and gender-based violence who are looking to connect with services – but only if they are truly secure through strong encryption.

For more on Global Encryption Day 2022 and encryption generally, please see the Internet Society’s page. If you’re a service provider and interested in more information on securing communication technology and digital services when working with survivors, check out our Digital Services Toolkit.