At the 2017 Allied Media Conference (AMC), we presented a preliminary framework of consentful technology in a session called Building Consentful Technologies. Several months later, we released the Building Consentful Tech zine.

We're excited to share that an exciting group of technologists and organizers have put together a full track of sessions on digital consent for the AMC2018, inspired in part by the zine:

Consent is voluntary, imaginative, active, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual, and honest. What is consent beyond our physical bodies? Companies, governments, non-profits and more are increasingly relying on algorithms and data, to shape our embodied and digital futures. What does it mean when harassment, violence, and surveillance extend beyond our physical lives and into our digital identities and relationships, or vice-versa? In the Digital Futures of Consent track, we seek to highlight examples of algorithmic accountability, accessible digital privacy and security practices and re-imagine tech infrastructure to both demystify and think critically about a digital future based in consent. Participants will leave with educational materials, tech development processes, a sense of digital self-worth, an empowered data body, and organizing practices that will lead us towards a culture of consent.

Digital Futures of Consent Track Description

The sessions in the lineup will be:

• Community Tech in Practice: Building Community Wifi Networks
  Presented by Teresa Basilio Gaztambide & Diana Nucera
• Digital Data Detox
  Presented by Karolle Rabarison
• Disguising Data Against Ubiquitous Surveillance
  Presented by Paola Mosso
• Can You Hear Us Now? Movement, Techies and Technology Politics
  Presented by Alice Aguilar, Alfredo Lopez & Cayden Mak
• Young People Building a Culture of Consent in Technology
  Presented by Tahliyah Griffin, Shamash Lima, Jahtiek McKenzie, Nevaeh Rios & Maya Wagoner
• Digital Consent is Coercive
  Presented by Jamie Garcia, Hamid Khan, Nadia Khan, Ken Montenegro
• Sex Work in the Digital Age: Navigating Consent
  Presented by Zoe Trope
• Networks of the Equitable Internet Initiative Tour
  Presented by Janice Gates & Diana Nucera
• Building Consentful Technology
  Presented by Una Lee & Tawana Petty
• Cost of Content Moderation: Censorship and Human Rights
  Presented by Nasser Eledroos, Jennie Rose Halperin & Becca Ricks
• Community Digital Risk Matrix
  Presented by Greta Byrum, Seeta Gangadharan, Ana Maria Reichenbach
• Holistic Harm Reduction for Digital Security
  Presented by Jack Aponte & Jamila Khan

The Digital Futures of Consent Track at AMC2018 is coordinated by Diana Nucera, Janice Gates, Houman Saberi, and Alice Aguilar. Read more about the track here and see more detail about the sessions here.

Greta Byrum, co-director of the New School's Digital Equity Laboratory, will be presenting a consentful tech related session called "Portable Network Kit (PNK): Building Community Tech" at re:publica 2018 in Berlin:

A Portable Network Kit (PNK) is a simply assembly of equipment that builds a basic wireless network (raspberry pi server + router + access point + battery). You can use it to communicate in an emergency, as an offline/local "sneakernet," or to share an internet connection. In this workshop we'll use a PNK to demystify wireless networking, and to create a consentful technology - one that embeds our consent as users, our control of our digital bodies, into tech design and function.

Session description, Portable Network Kit (PNK): Building Community Tech

See the full session description on re:publica's website. Read more about PNK here.