Privacy non-profit violates my privacy. 🙃

General
1

What happened?

There’s a non-profit privacy organization in my area that, similar to Privacy International, investigates and researches surveillance. Recently, I received an email from their newsletter, which ironically I have never subscribed to.

Context

What makes this incident particularly offensive to me is that I have been trying to get in touch with this organization for months (since last year), and they keep ghosting me for no explicable reason.

Why I wanted to get in touch:

I wanted to get in touch with them to help me launch an investigation into a specific privacy and surveillance issue, and expose it to the public with the help of the media. Every single time I emailed them, they would take forever to reply (weeks). I had to send multiple reminders for every original email I sent before I heard back from them.

Failed Meeting

The director of the organization had originally agreed to a meeting with me on a specific week, but then failed to confirm a date when I asked them to multiple times.

No accountability

A week after our meeting was supposed to happen, I respectfully called them out. Instead of acknowledging that they failed to confirm a date, they asked me to point-blank state my business, which is something I would have preferred to discuss in the meeting.

Regardless, I was prepared. I replied within the hour and told them about the issue I wanted to raise. My email was precise and detailed. They never responded. Weeks go by after I send multiple reminders until finally, they reply with barely a single line by referring me to their colleague.

No acknowledgement

So to be clear, the director of the organization doesn’t even address the issue that I raised; they don’t opine on it at all, which was deeply upsetting. If they had said no we can’t work on this because X, I would have been disappointed. But not commenting on it at all is worse. I expressed my disappointment, thanked them for the reference, and emailed the colleague. In the email to the colleague, I copy the director.

Ghosted

I never heard back from them ever since. Sent multiple reminders. Nothing.

And now months later, I get an email for their newly launched newsletter, which I never subscribed to. I feel compelled to respond.

My goal:

Call them out. Get them to acknowledge their mistakes. Have them unsubscribe me and finally respond to my emails from months ago.

Below are two versions of the the email I plan to send:

Email v1
Email v2

Some of my alternative subject titles include:

  1. Re: Dear X & Y, please do better.
  2. Re: Dear Name of Org., please do better.
  3. Re: I did not consent to this. Please stop.
  4. Re: I did not consent to this. Please respect my privacy.
  5. Re: I did not consent to this. Please unsubscribe me.
  6. Re: Please respect my privacy.
  7. Re: Please unsubscribe me.

Part of me wants to use #1 but it’s probably too aggressive.

Even though they have casually dismissed me so many times, I still want to work with them. Worst case scenario, I want them to tell me no and tell me why the answer is no when the whole point of their existence is to research and investigate surveillance. I really want them to launch this investigation but they do not seem to care about anything I have to say.

What I’m learning so far:

I find it extremely disheartening that a privacy organization uphold the values it claims to hold, and doesn’t seem to care about the community that engages with them. I live in a place where no one cares about privacy.

The local organizations and media outlets that bring awareness to these issues get no traction. This particular privacy organization has less than 400 followers on social media and their content never gets liked or re-shared. You’d think they’d love people engaging with their work. But apparently not. I still care though.

1 Like
2

I am not sure what your expecting in terms of responses for this post.

It sounds like you are dealing with a very small non-profit. The communication is poor on their part but (probably due to a limited staff) it seems to me like they don’t think the issue you are bringing up is worth the limited resources they have.

I think your time would be better spent pursuing other avenues then wasting effort in trying to get this organization to validate your feeling of being wronged.

The title is a bit confusing, how exactly did they violate your privacy?

3 Likes
3

I just wanted to share my story and see if other people have had weird or ironic experiences with privacy organizations and/or media/outlets that report on those issues. Because it has certainly been an education for me. At least so far.

They are small, but they are backed by a law firm that is engaged in social justice and has successfully sued the government. They probably do have limited resources for the case I want to bring, but if they have time respond to my emails, they should have time to engage with what I have to say. They didn’t. They never commented on the story I brought them. Never. Nor if they could or couldn’t do anything about it.

They post on social medias multiple times a week and get zero engagement. Who is their work for if not people like me who care? I would imagine that they want people to share and discuss their work, yet no one does that.

The primary objective is not to get them to validate my feeling of being wronged. It’s to get them to respond to my pas emails. This incident is just a good reason to engage with them again.

And even if this incident had never occurred, I don’t think I have made enough efforts to give up on reaching this specific organization. Not even close. That would be giving up very easily. They are the only organization exclusively dedicated to investigating and researching surveillance in the country I’m in.

I haven’t given up on them. And I do have other avenues. At some point I will contact the law firm that backs them. If I don’t reach them, I will go to their office (the law firm’s). The privacy organization doesn’t have an office. They all work remote. If they did, I would have gone to see them.

I have emailed past members of the organization. One of them, an investigative journalist responded to me. They said that they couldn’t help for personal reasons but encouraged me to not give up because my issue is important.

My first step is to contact all the local media outlets and organizations that investigate privacy and surveillance related issues. I have reached quite a few and so far I am failing. The few that have responded, ghost me the moment after I tell them what it’s about. They don’t think it’s important when it is a pervasive national issue.

I personally suspect that their bias is that because we live in a country where certain types of surveillances have been common place for decades, we can’t challenge them. I believe they’re wrong. I also believe that another reason they are so dismissive is because one aspect of the issue I’m raising only concerns a minority of the population, so they don’t think it really matters.

I don’t think so. They subscribed my email address, the one I have been contacting them with, to their newsletter. I never consented to that. That’s violation of my privacy. Moreover, I think it’s weird to subscribe someone you seem to be actively ghosting.

1 Like
4

Taking this into consideration, I would really recommend sending the second email rather than the first one. You should try a few more times. As you said, the first one is a little aggressive.

1 Like
5

Yeah, I think that’s probably what I am going to do. I just hope I get a response, because not hearing back from them is very frustrating. As I said, no one cares about privacy where I am. None of my friends and family do either. I am a weirdo when it comes to that. There is no physical or online community for my location dedicated to privacy. Americans are very lucky.

1 Like