With our ever-expanding digital societies, the public accessibility of generative AI technologies, the economic power of data-driven algorithms, the nefarious surveillance state apparatus, and pervasive user apathy, The Digital Rhetorical Privacy Collective (DRP Collective/DRPC) is an interactive, coalitional resource which hosts events and features reading lists, activities, assignments, lesson plans, and other teaching materials for teaching about digital privacy and surveillance. The DRPC’s mission is the bridge the scholarly and public conversations about surveillance and privacy to enact coalitional action dedicated to not only to ending oppression under surveillance capitalism, but also to building an equitable futures for all. 

Defining privacy has proven quite difficult as so many interactions have transitioned online. For example, instructors working in educational settings rely on Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to guide their interactions with students and the definition of privacy defined by the Human Subject Institutional Review Board (IRB) for their research. Conversely, people working in the medical and healthcare industry follow guidelines of the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These variations in how people understand privacy represent a microcosm of the different views about privacy, and digital privacy, across society.

The DRPC is an evolving project! In February 2023, the DRPC was awarded an Emergent Researcher grant from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)/Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). This grant helped kickstart our cross-country, inter-institutional, week-long hybrid event: Privacy Week 2024.

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