Photo © Mariona Vilarós Tim Schwartz's career focuses on data privacy and digital information as an artist, activist, and technologist. He specializes in teaching techniques for challenging power while protecting one’s identity. Schwartz co-organizes the digital training organization Los Angeles Cryptoparty, a member of the Electronic Frontier Alliance. He currently works as a digital strategist at Alley, a digital agency that builds websites and digital systems for the media, nonprofits, and others. After developing technology to reunite missing people affected by the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, he began organizing the Missing Persons Community of Interest, which develops technology for reunifying families after disasters. He lives in Los Angeles.

Protecting your identity is the priority, and anonymity is the key to success.

Anonymity is only possible when you can see yourself as the world does - as the world sees your identity - then figure out how to disguise it.

As someone ready to challenge power, you may have thought the information you want to expose is the most important thing you have to protect. Wrong. Your identity must be protected above all else. If you don't protect it, you will be compromised. That can prevent you from exposing the information.

Your identity isn't defined by simply your name, birth date, Social Security number, or any other basic piece of information. Your identity is also not limited to how you identify internally, or in terms of race or gender - it includes how you express yourself in the world, as well as how you are seen by governments, corporations, your social network, and even your family.

Data tracking and logging has evolved exponentially in the last few decades, and your identity is now bundled up in numerous systems that are hard to even conceptualize. Your identity now comprises a virtually infinite number of data points, including the products and services you use, who you communicate with, who your connections communicate with, what you do online, and where you physically go.

You are your habits.

The only real way to protect your identity is with anonymity. Divest your true identity from the acts you will perform that challenge power. The chances of retaliation are much lower if you are anonymous — it is harder to be retaliated against if no one knows who you are. Anonymity can also correct the power imbalance between you and the system you are confronting. The underdog can have a fighting chance.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, emphasizes the importance of being unknown. “What you’ll rarely see is the case of the person who isn’t anonymous and seeing them walk away unscathed,” she says.

As you proceed down the path of challenging the status quo and the powers that be, you may decide to be the public face of your cause. This can have benefits or drawbacks. But in order to have the choice to do so, rather than the obligation to do so, you must first be anonymous. If you aren’t anonymous to start, you will never get to decide if your identity will be made public. Instead, the decision will be out of your hands, and your identity will be at the mercy of your adversaries, the public, and perhaps the press.

So start by being anonymous. You can always decide to reveal your identity later on, but you can never get anonymity back once your identity is revealed.

A Public Service Introduction from Tim Schwartz on Vimeo.

Photo © Mariona Vilarós Tim Schwartz's career focuses on data privacy and digital information as an artist, activist, and technologist. He specializes in teaching techniques for challenging power while protecting one’s identity. Schwartz co-organizes the digital training organization Los Angeles Cryptoparty, a member of the Electronic Frontier Alliance. He currently works as a digital strategist at Alley, a digital agency that builds websites and digital systems for the media, nonprofits, and others. After developing technology to reunite missing people affected by the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, he began organizing the Missing Persons Community of Interest, which develops technology for reunifying families after disasters. He lives in Los Angeles.

Protecting your identity is the priority, and anonymity is the key to success.

Anonymity is only possible when you can see yourself as the world does - as the world sees your identity - then figure out how to disguise it.

As someone ready to challenge power, you may have thought the information you want to expose is the most important thing you have to protect. Wrong. Your identity must be protected above all else. If you don't protect it, you will be compromised. That can prevent you from exposing the information.

Your identity isn't defined by simply your name, birth date, Social Security number, or any other basic piece of information. Your identity is also not limited to how you identify internally, or in terms of race or gender - it includes how you express yourself in the world, as well as how you are seen by governments, corporations, your social network, and even your family.

Data tracking and logging has evolved exponentially in the last few decades, and your identity is now bundled up in numerous systems that are hard to even conceptualize. Your identity now comprises a virtually infinite number of data points, including the products and services you use, who you communicate with, who your connections communicate with, what you do online, and where you physically go.

You are your habits.

The only real way to protect your identity is with anonymity. Divest your true identity from the acts you will perform that challenge power. The chances of retaliation are much lower if you are anonymous — it is harder to be retaliated against if no one knows who you are. Anonymity can also correct the power imbalance between you and the system you are confronting. The underdog can have a fighting chance.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, emphasizes the importance of being unknown. “What you’ll rarely see is the case of the person who isn’t anonymous and seeing them walk away unscathed,” she says.

As you proceed down the path of challenging the status quo and the powers that be, you may decide to be the public face of your cause. This can have benefits or drawbacks. But in order to have the choice to do so, rather than the obligation to do so, you must first be anonymous. If you aren’t anonymous to start, you will never get to decide if your identity will be made public. Instead, the decision will be out of your hands, and your identity will be at the mercy of your adversaries, the public, and perhaps the press.

So start by being anonymous. You can always decide to reveal your identity later on, but you can never get anonymity back once your identity is revealed.

A Public Service Introduction from Tim Schwartz on Vimeo.