This site is not maintained. The Digital Stewardship Initiative was reorganized as Open Effect in 2015.

The Digital Stewardship Initiative (DSI) conducts applied research and development focused on advancing accountable personal data practices.

We are motivated to give people resources to help bring balance to the current trend of data operators like cloud service providers retaining, sharing, and getting value from everyone’s personal data with little transparency. To overcome this asymmetry, people should have greater access to and a higher capacity to benefit from their own personal information.

The tools we develop and writing we publish aim to contribute to the development and adoption of best practices for handling personal data in a manner that protects people’s digital rights among industry, government, and civil society actors.

DSI is housed at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Our work:

Social Media Watch

Our monthly recap of legal, policy, and tech news stories that impact privacy, security, and free expression on social media.
Cross-posted at The Citizen Lab.

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    Tools & Resources

    Our tools and resources designed to help citizens and data-collecting organizations be accountable stewards of people’s digital footprints.

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