This brief highlights the digital security trends most likely to affect human rights defenders and grassroots networks in the coming year,2027, with attention to identity protection, censorship circumvention, spyware risks, AI-enabled surveillance, and internal knowledge-management systems.
Throughout Q3 and Q4 2026, the Defenders Coalition monitored the rapidly shifting technology landscape to identify emerging threats facing the organization and grassroots networks. The team focused on technologies and practices that organizations will need to adopt or navigate, including WhatsApp usernames for protecting legal identities in public advocacy channels and advanced VPNs for bypassing localized internet censorship.
We also reviewed device-hygiene protocols, including Apple’s Lockdown Mode, as a response to spyware threats such as Pegasus, which was identified as part of a growing digital-surveillance risk. In addition, following warnings from AI whistleblowers such as Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at Anthropic, the team tracked the rise of agentic AI and predictive mass surveillance, including the ways CCTV and digital transactions can be combined to map organizing networks in real time. Alongside this external threat monitoring, the team strengthened the organization’s internal infrastructure by revamping the e-library, which offers human rights study modules for human rights defenders, and by improving the Case Management System (CMS).
The assessment also showed that digital security is not limited to external threat detection. It also depends on whether organizations have reliable internal systems for learning, documentation, and case follow-up.
This monitoring was important because human rights defenders must prepare for autonomous threats that go beyond standard cyber hygiene. As Kenya approaches the 2027 general elections, the regulatory environment is tightening: the government has proposed a digital intelligence unit, and Parliament recently approved the National Cybersecurity Agency Order, 2026, which establishes a state body to audit information infrastructure. Based on these assessments, the organization and its grassroots network are better positioned to navigate an environment increasingly shaped by biometric registries, algorithmic feeds, and state-linked information controls. The coming year’s priority should therefore be informed resilience: strengthening digital practices, anticipating surveillance risks, and ensuring that defenders can continue organizing safely.