The Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI) workshop is a meeting place for researchers and practitioners from academia, civil society, and the private sector who are working on Internet openness, security, and human rights. It brings together perspectives from a wide range of backgrounds across technical and social science disciplines. Participants range from established experts to those just entering the area (e.g., graduate students). We started CLSI to demonstrate that a greater understanding of technology and policy can only be achieved through interdisciplinary collaboration and our aim is to help build and support a community that shares this belief.

CLSI 2019 will be held in Toronto, Canada July 31 – August 2. We are now accepting applications from individuals interested in: network interference and freedom of expression online; surveillance and counter surveillance; security and privacy of apps; corporate transparency and public accountability; and gender and digital security. Applications are due by April 1, 2019.

Collaborations formed at prior Summer Institute workshops have led to high impact projects including analyzing national security and signals intelligence policy in Canada (2017), investigating censorship of the death of Liu Xiaobo on WeChat and Weibo (2017), conducting security audits of child monitoring apps in South Korea (2017, 2016, 2015), documenting Internet filtering in Zambia (2016), and exposing the “Great Cannon” (2014), an attack tool in China used for large scale distributed-denial of service attacks against Github and GreatFire.org.

In order to ensure the Citizen Lab is inclusive, safe, and welcoming for all, please review the Code of Conduct which is in effect for CLSI and all related events.

For more information and to apply, visit the CLSI website.