WHAT IF knowledge of individual rights was made more accessible?
We at Just One Giant Lab (JOGL) recently held our first ‘What If ‘ event, focused on fostering insightful conversations and stimulating new connections within our community. This time, we talked about individual rights accessibility with community member Jean F. Queralt of Project Lockdown!
For a long time, Jean F. Queralt had been disturbed by the level of intrusion information and communication technologies have in the personal lives of people and societies at large. Having worked as a programmer and a sysadmin for 18 years (in what he describes a less-happy-than-now period of his life), he founded The IO Foundation to raise awareness of digital rights issues, as well as propose effective solutions to ensure that they are adequately observed from a technical perspective.
“When the pandemic started last year, a lot of people were tracking COVID-19 related numbers and statistics, yet no one was interested in putting the data in a visually digestible format”, Jean explains. “We found ourselves surrounded by an overwhelming series of data on reported cases and deaths… we were witnessing the world clamping down one lockdown at a time and we couldn’t really tell for how long. To my dismay, there wasn’t a clear map that would indicate which territories underwent restrictions and, most importantly, for how long.”
These concerns resulted in a conversation about the topic on the Code for All’s Slack workspace. Not long after, Jean and volunteers were creating a map to reflect the lockdowns. “The idea was to display the past, present and future status of lockdowns, without playing crystal ball games with predictive algorithms: if no new policies are implemented, this is what the world will look like in months to come,” said Jean.
As development moved forward, the project concept matured by incorporating an additional number of data points and developing a general strategy: core data points would be selected on the basis of their potential impact on Human and Digital Rights and sources would be exclusively drawn from official pronouncements. This allowed for a coherent selection of data points as well as a database that would bear legal merit.
“In the first weeks of the pandemic, COVID-19 hackathons were the hot stuff, for better or for worse. A bit out of nowhere, our team found itself involved in the EU vs VIRUS hackathon organized by the European Commission. All major objectives were achieved and we made it into the winners list,” said Jean.
A few weeks of hard work later, the team launched the first version of their project. They quickly understood that the concept had a lot of potential and that they wanted to go beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. “Plans were made to build a platform that could render different thematic policies and create a Global Rights Index with all that information.”
The team wanted to develop a digital platform that maps our rights in different contexts — from pandemic lockdowns to national digital ID initiatives — all around the globe. They wanted to make it easier for people to understand the complex business of rights in an easy and intuitive manner while providing data and tools for journalists and rights defenders to do their job.
For months now, Jean and a community of over 20 members have been building their second version of the platform. “Despite all the difficulties to engage volunteers, we were determined to not drop the original volunteer-lead spirit of the project while needing to address how to reach a more consistent level of development. We have now experimented with a hybrid strategy of hiring programmers for the development of core features and providing our volunteers with tasks that are more adequate to the time they can dedicate to code,” said Jean.
To learn more about Project Lockdown, watch Jean F. Queralt talk at our first ‘What If ‘ event! Answers have been edited for clarity or brevity.
What is the main challenge you faced to develop your project?
Jean: “We struggled to find volunteers. Starting a project during a time of crisis with volunteers is actually easy because people want to be able to help others, but as time passes, only about 25% of people actually do the job. As things settle down, people don’t have the same time and motivation anymore. We adapt to new realities. So now it makes more sense to hire people — commitment is higher, degree of reliability is higher.”
“We struggled to raise funding, there was not a lot of money for policy-related innovation for COVID-19.”
“The only reason Project Lockdown is still alive is because the team is very determined and headstrong about making change!”
How did JOGL help you with your project?
Jean: “JOGL has given us exposure, and we also got volunteers through JOGL. When I first joined, I was looking to join a community of people who are doing things with a passion similar to ours, and I also got a lot of help later with resources for Project Lockdown.”
What are your future goals for your project?
Jean: “We are organizing a conference with other COVID-19 policy trackers, and we are doing a Lightning talk at the Internet Governance Forum. We are also working on v2.0 of the Project Lockdown platform. We are looking to incorporate other policies into the tracker.”
“We’re looking forward to developing local partnerships in different regions and territories, so that the project enables more people. We want to increase access to policy-related information but also on human rights.”
“Are you interested in joining Project Lockdown? Join us on JOGL, reach out to us via email Contact@TheIOFoundation.org or find us on the #the-io-foundation channel on the Code for All Slack workspace. Participate in our TechUp events or find us in other similar initiatives, such as DemocracyLab.”
What do you wish people asked you about the project?
A common misunderstanding is that people believe that rights are given to people automatically, but that isn’t the case. Rights are to be kept and defended. Rights come with obligations and consequences. Be an active and purposeful member of the society by exercising the knowledge of your rights.
