Holistic Digital Security Solutions for Civil Society Organisations

Building trust takes time. At DSA, we’ve spent the past decade bolstering the abilities of social justice and civil society organisations across Southern Africa.

About Our Organisation

Digital Society of Africa (DSA) works to strengthen the digital resilience and capabilities of frontline activists, human rights defenders, and at-risk groups in our region. By safeguarding the information security of local civil society organisations, our expert network is fighting to ensure essential social justice work continues in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland. And by demystifying digital security practices, we’re helping everyday people protect themselves from previously unknown online risks.

Through our free-of-cost trainings, local organisations and individuals gain the skills they need to independently recognise and respond to digital threats and attacks. DSA’s local and holistic approach to digital security includes organisational security audits, risk assessments, in-person and online trainings, sustainable security accompaniments, security policy formulation, and tech support.

Building Trust for Nearly a Decade

Numbers Speak

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Our Services

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OrgSec Audits

Establishing the status of your organisation’s digital security is not only key to find out whether your systems have been compromised, but also to ensure your organisation stays on top of security threats going forward. Organisational Security (OrgSec) assessments and audits offered by DSA will help your team establish a baseline and understand the nature of the existing security threats and vulnerabilities you face.

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DigiSec Trainings

Civil society organisations in Southern Africa often need to improve their digital security. In an effort to meet this critical need, DSA conducts in-depth risk assessments with human rights defenders, activists, and journalists to better understand and develop their threat model. This essential first step informs the nature of intervention and focus areas for our subsequent Digital Security (DigiSec) trainings. These free offerings directly respond to the needs of the participants and address identified security risks through knowledge sharing, skills building, and privacy/security tool training.

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Accompaniments

Because lasting behavior change takes time, whenever possible DSA offers longer-term digital security accompaniments for at-risk groups and human rights organisations. Over a protracted period, selected organisations are guided through the change management process. Years of experience in the field has demonstrated this longer-term, participatory approach is the best way to support organisations in strengthening their digital security endeavors. Accompaniments give individuals more practice time with security tools and behaviors, while simultaneously building confidence and self-reliance through ongoing support.

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Research

As local experts in the field, DSA lends its knowledge and experience to important pieces of research related to technology, digital security, digital rights and Internet governance. Resources we have contributed to include:

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Usability Testing

As a team dedicated to supporting human rights defenders, DSA tests the usability of various security programs and apps before training with or recommending them to users. This includes existing and new apps still in development. Usability testing allows us to give critical feedback to developers whilst ensuring that technical solutions to digital security problems make sense to users, are user friendly and address specific needs.

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Training of Trainers

We aspire towards strengthening the digital resilience of human rights defenders in the region. To this end, DSA invests time, expertise and resources contributing towards growing the network of a strong talent pool of digital security trainers from which to pull in Africa, to be able effectively attend to the demand in the region.