Tactical Tech examines how personal data fuels digital influence
Published on 27 September 2026 at 02:09 GMT
By Editorial Team SDG16
Tactical Tech, an international non-profit, examines how personal data is used in political campaigning and develops public education resources about technology. Its Influence Industry Project investigates the companies and services behind digital political messages, including personalised targeting and the tracking of email engagement. Alongside that research, its guides and exhibitions explore digital privacy and how people encounter information online.
The organisation describes its remit as the social, political and environmental effects of technology. It combines research with exhibitions, guides and training, working through partners in education, culture, independent media and civil society. This places its activities across two different settings: the everyday decisions of people using digital services, and the work of journalists and other investigators examining how those services operate.
From personal habits to public questions
The Data Detox Kit illustrates the first approach. Its website offers material on privacy, security, wellbeing and misinformation, alongside resources concerning health, families and the environment. The kit was launched for The Glass Room exhibition in New York in 2016. According to the project, its materials have been used in classrooms, libraries and organisations internationally, with translated print editions extending access beyond the original language.
The project presents its advice as a way for people to make informed choices and adjust digital habits to their circumstances. That is an educational aim, rather than evidence that every reader changes behaviour or experiences a measurable improvement in privacy. The distinction matters when describing a resource that can be read independently, distributed in print or used as part of organised learning.
An individual guide also addresses a different level of decision-making from an investigation into commercial data use. Choosing how to use a device does not, by itself, explain the relationships between a campaign, its suppliers and the information they process. Digital literacy in this context spans both practical habits and an understanding of institutions and incentives.
Making technology a subject of discussion
The Glass Room uses exhibitions and interactive material to explore digital life. Tactical Tech describes formats ranging from larger exhibitions to inexpensive versions that hosts can print themselves. Posters, animations and workshop materials offer different ways of presenting the subject, rather than relying solely on a technical report or a website.
Its What The Future Wants initiative focuses on young people, using exhibitions, activities and resources for educators. A separate project, Exposing the Invisible, provides investigative resources and workshops for journalists, researchers and other civil-society participants. Together, these programmes address audiences with different purposes: discussing an experience of technology, teaching a group, or developing an investigation.
The organisation says partners adapt and localise its resources. This model gives libraries, schools and community organisations a role in deciding how material reaches their audiences. Availability, however, is distinct from participation, and participation from learning. A translated guide establishes that a resource exists in another language; it does not establish how widely it is understood or whether its effects persist.
Investigating the business behind political messages
The Influence Industry Project shifts attention towards companies supplying digital services to political campaigns. Tactical Tech describes practices including personalised targeting, analysis of social-media activity and measurement of email engagement. Its research treats consultants, technology providers and platforms as part of the infrastructure of political communication, alongside the parties and candidates whose messages voters see.
According to Tactical Tech, the project launched its Influence Industry Explorer in 2022. The organisation describes it as a tool providing information about more than 500 companies involved in election campaigning. The project also offers country case studies, a learning hub and training. Its Inform resources include guides and workshop activities for voter education, linking investigation of the industry with material intended for public use.
These are different kinds of evidence and activity. A database entry identifying a supplier is not, on its own, proof of unlawful conduct, manipulation or an effect on an election result. Describing a targeting technique likewise does not establish that a particular message persuaded a particular voter. Those conclusions require evidence beyond the existence of the company or the advertised service.
The public-interest questions therefore extend beyond whether an advertisement appears online. They concern which actors take part, what information is used, and what can be established about the process. Research into suppliers makes those relationships a subject of scrutiny without resolving every question about the effectiveness or legitimacy of political persuasion.
Access to information and the limits of impact claims
The work has a thematic connection to SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). The United Nations goal includes public access to information and protection of fundamental freedoms under target 16.10, alongside accountable institutions and participatory decision-making. Educational resources about political data use relate to that information agenda, although producing them is not itself a measure of progress against the goal's official indicators.
Indicator 16.10.2 counts countries that adopt and implement constitutional, statutory or policy guarantees for public access to information. It does not measure the number of guides, events or participants in educational projects. An organisation's output therefore cannot, on its own, establish progress against this indicator.
For Tactical Tech, the documented contribution is a collection of research and educational formats that make technology, personal data and influence available for examination. Its programme descriptions establish what it offers and whom it seeks to reach. Whether particular activities produce lasting changes in understanding, behaviour or institutional practice remains a separate question from the existence and distribution of those resources.
Written by a human author, edited with AI assistance.
Further information:
Tactical Tech, About us. Describes the organisation's remit, partner model and approach to local adaptation.
Data Detox Kit, About the Data Detox Kit. Documents the kit's origins, educational purpose, use settings and translated print materials.
Tactical Tech, Our projects. Describes The Glass Room, What The Future Wants and Exposing the Invisible.
Tactical Tech, The Influence Industry Project. Supports the descriptions of political data practices, the Explorer's launch and scope, and voter education resources.
United Nations, Goal 16. Provides the targets and indicators for access to information, accountable institutions and participatory decision-making.
