‘It depends on your threat model’: the anticipatory dimensions of resistance to data-driven surveillance

While many forms of data-driven surveillance are now a ‘fact’ contemporary life amidst datafication, obtaining concrete knowledge how different institutions exploit data presents an ongoing challenge, requiring the expertise and power to untangle increasingly complex opaque technological institutional arrangements. The why potential thus wrapped in form continuously produced uncertainty. How then, do affected groups individuals determine counter threats harms surveillance? Responding interdisciplinary concern with agency this article explores what I term ‘anticipatory practices’ – future-oriented practices which provide anchor heuristic for action persistent uncertainties data. This traces anticipatory have emerged within civil society concerned countering exploitation. mixed-method empirical analysis draws from 50 interviews digital security educators technology developers; participant observation at 12 events between 2016 2019 textual 100 manuals by NGOs grassroots groups.