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Open Conversations: Privacy Is a Civic Technology (Isabela Fernandes)

Funding the CommonsThu, Oct 9, 2025, 12:00 AM

Speaker

Isabela Fernandes

Tor’s tools are designed for resistance. From volunteer-run relays to privacy-preserving browsers, the network creates real alternatives to systems built to track, sort, and silence. In this Open Conversation, Isabela Fernandes, Executive Director of The Tor Project, explains how control is written into the infrastructure of the internet and how we can better counter it. Privacy, she argues, is not a personal preference. It is a public right and a necessary condition for political democratic participation. Isabela reminds us that anonymity isn’t a shield for bad actors, but rather a safeguard for a free society. Filmed at Funding the Commons Forum Berlin, June 2025. Relevant Projects: The Tor Project: https://www.torproject.org Funding the Commons: https://www.fundingthecommons.io Thank You to Our Sponsors: Protocol Labs: https://www.protocol.ai NEAR Foundation: https://near.foundation Stellar Development Foundation: https://stellar.org Layer: https://layer.xyz Octant: https://octant.app human.tech by Holonym Foundation: https://human.tech/ Drips: https://drips.network Self Protocol: https://self.xyz/ Gitcoin: https://gitcoin.co

Transcript

When people ask what is privacy, I normally say privacy is everything that makes you who you are. Like every single element, the things that you like, the thing that you dislike, the things that you're curious about, the things that you want to change. My name is Isabella Fernandez. I'm the exact director of the top project and our mission is to advance human rights with our technology. We are focused on privacy and the ability of people to be anonymous online.

I always tend to say when people try to associate anonymity with, oh, you have something to hide. You're probably going to do something illegal. I remind people that anonymity is important pillar of democracy. Your vote is anonymous for a reason. So, it's very dangerous to make that association, right?

Like it's very dangerous to think that privacy does not matter because when you start saying those things you're giving a green light to the dismantle of democracy. We are in a narrative war and this information is not just about moderating content and fake news is also about the lack of truthful information and technology is a key component of who is going to win the war. I think uh more than ever, right, like for the future of the planet, for the future of human rights in general, we need to start thinking about that, thinking about what technology we're using. We have a group of volunteers calling direct authorities. They are the ones who look around and map the network every hour.

So, I think people do want to help. They want to contribute. Sometimes what is impeding them is the resources or just the technical knowledge. So we need to lower those barriers. It is possible to have a different relationship with technology and we are proving and we're showing it.

These projects are extremely important for the resistance and this is when I call digital disobedience. It can be the moment that you deny cookies on your browser you doing it. I always say like okay you use this signal that's great but if someone send you a URL on signal where you gonna open you're gonna open on chrome no you want safe browser to do it so you can open on top brows so that one complements the Thank [Music] you.

Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.