Community Privacy Residency (2026)

The Community Privacy Residency is a 3-week residency bringing together researchers, builders, and community organizers to co-design and build open-source tools for community privacy, with a focus this year on Countersurveillance, Privacy & Cryptography in AI, and Community Infrastructure.

As surveillance technologies proliferate and AI systems reshape how data is collected and used, communities need practical, human-centered privacy infrastructure grounded in real-world community needs, participatory design, and an open-source ethos.

2026 Applications Open!

Applications for the Community Privacy Residency 2026 are now open!

We also welcome community partners, sponsors, and collaborators. If you or your organization are interested in supporting or collaborating on community-driven privacy infrastructure and applied cryptography work, let’s talk! communityprivacyteam@protonmail.com

2026 Residency Info

  • Dates: July 15 – August 6, 2026
  • Location: Berlin, Germany at Projektraum Drahnsdorf, a community focusing on sustainability, participatory democracy, and rural revitalisation.

The Community Privacy Residency convenes experienced practitioners across research, participatory design, community organizing, policy, engineering, cryptography, privacy, security, journalism, activism, and more.

The program is intentionally designed to foster cross-domain collaboration and learning among experts in their field, produce high-quality open-source work, and foster a long-term community that continues beyond the residency.

Residents will:

  • Collaborate across disciplines on research, co-design, prototyping, and more
  • Learn with and from one another through residency programming and peer-led workshops
  • Develop and publish open-source projects
  • Join a growing alumni ecosystem of multi-domain experts working at the intersections of technology, privacy, design, and activism

Project Tracks

Our project tracks are meant to be inspirational rather than prescriptive, representing areas of focus for the upcoming residency we believe will be especially pertinent or impactful. Residents are welcome to collaborate on projects beyond these proposed focus areas.

» Countersurveillance

How can we detect if we are being surveilled? What measures can we take to resist these modes of surveillance, and to hold corporations and governments accountable? Countersurveillance begins in understanding our rights as citizens and consumers; auditing the services and policies that we interact with; and taking action to resist violations of our privacy.

» Privacy & Cryptography in AI

What are the implications of cryptography for AI safety? What frameworks do we have for data ownership, governance, and privacy in model training? This track focuses on both privacy layers around AI usage and the implications of cryptography for AI Safety and efficiency and encompasses privacy-preserving machine learning, cryptographic techniques for AI safety and efficiency, and data governance, consent, and agency.

» Community Infrastructure

Digital public infrastructure can support public goods for the masses. At the same time, what happens when state or corporate systems become unreliable, exploitative, or antagonistic? This track focuses on community infrastructure that is human-centered, cryptography-enabled, and/or privacy-first, such as through frameworks of platform justice, collective data action, censorship or surveillance resistance, and more.