About This Repository

This website is a living repository of explorations into digital security. The work in this collection brings together outputs from our digital security research projects and collaborations. The catalyst for the work is a research team at Royal Holloway (University of London) but the work is always co-produced with individuals, groups, and organisations beyond the university walls. As researchers we operate outside of the academy as much as we do inside it.

Digital security is a complex topic and over the years our work has created a number of lenses through which to examine, explore and build new understandings.

• Creative Engagement: creative methods for working with communities.
• Digital Responsibility: using technology in an appropriate and constructive way for oneself and others, navigating the digital divide.
• Inclusive Security: accountability and transparency of access to digital security for all stakeholders.
• Critical Positioning: outputs that challenge and question our research position.
• Digital Equity: equitable access to digital-by-default services.

Click the colour-coded lenses to see the research related to each lens:

Each lens allows us to foreground a different aspect of digital security, and bring to light the full spectrum of this dimension of digital security.

As we built this repository, we decided to title it Refractions. The term ‘refraction’ comes from the late Latin word ‘refringere’, meaning ‘a breaking up’ – in this case we unpack the security entanglements of the everyday to pull out and examine the different splinters of digital security such as trust, privacy, power, identity, agency, and provenance. The work presented here is a collective and collaborative effort from a diverse range of academic researchers, digital practitioners, lay researchers, policy makers and activitsts who believe that approaches to security must be inclusive and celebrate difference.

The work presented in this collection specialises in people-centered, often participatory research. We design as well as repurpose methods for gathering data and conducting analysis, often drawing on techniques and philosophies from the arts, humanities, informatics, social sciences and media arts. The approaches are designed to promote change in practice and policy and focus on social and organisational aspects of information management and exchange. By creating a living repository we aim to share knowledge and increase  awareness of the many meanings, understandings and practices of digital security.