Access
Nobody gets left outside
We educate communities at the margin so emerging technology does not arrive as something done to them. Digital literacy is a fundamental right, not an upgrade.
Today, while you were working
Four decisions were made about you.
You never met anyone who made them.
DECISION LOG · TODAY
01 / 04
FACIAL RECOGNITION · 06:12
Your face was scanned 14 times before breakfast.
01 / 04 · 06:12
FACIAL RECOGNITION
Your face was scanned 14 times before breakfast.
Consent: not required
02 / 04 · 08:03
DATA BROKER
Your location was sold to 87 partners.
Retention: indefinite
03 / 04 · 11:40
AUTOMATED DECISION
Your loan was denied. No reason given.
Appeal: unavailable
04 / 04 · 15:22
HIRING ALGORITHM
Your résumé was rejected. No human read it.
Reviewed by a person: no
Today, while you were working
Four decisions were made about you before dinner. You never met anyone who made them.
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PRIVACY IS NOT A LUXURY ● EVERY ALGORITHM IS A POLICY ● NO FACE WITHOUT CONSENT ● DIGITAL LITERACY IS A RIGHT ● AUDIT THE MACHINE ●
PRIVACY IS NOT A LUXURY ● EVERY ALGORITHM IS A POLICY ● NO FACE WITHOUT CONSENT ● DIGITAL LITERACY IS A RIGHT ● AUDIT THE MACHINE ●
In short
DCRC translates civil and human rights principles into the way AI, biometrics, and automated decisions get built and governed.
Research, convenings, public education, and global partnership. Six years of it, from the White House to Accra to Tokyo.
Access
Nobody gets left outside
Accountability
If it can accuse you, audit it
Advancement
Build the table yourself
6
Years
5
Workstreams
3
Pillars
4
Continents
Our mission
Civil rights are decided in code now.
AI, biometrics, and automated decision-making already govern who gets hired, housed, policed, and believed. DCRC translates civil and human rights principles into the way those systems are actually built and governed: in the room, before deployment, with the communities they will judge.
Research, convenings, public education, and global partnership. Six years of it, from the White House to Accra to Tokyo.
Somebody has to be in the room saying it out loud.
6+
Years of impact
5
Core workstreams
3
Pillars
4
Continents
Three pillars
One test for every system: does it leave people more free than it found them?
None of it works alone
Accountability
If it can accuse you, audit it
A
We hold companies and law enforcement to account for AI and facial recognition that disadvantages people by race, religion, or gender identity, with policy that has teeth.
Advancement
Build the table yourself
A
We equip our community to build their own technology products, and to own them. Generational wealth is a civil rights outcome, not a side effect.
Fund the fight
Every dollar buys a room where the decision hasn't been made yet.
Impact · featured
We took facial recognition into the White House.
In 2024 DCRC convened policymakers, technologists, civil society leaders, and legal experts at the White House complex on the civil liberties and economic consequences of biometric surveillance. Not a panel. A working session with the people who sign the rules.
Read the case study →DCRC in the room
Different rooms.
The same argument.
OPENING PANEL · 2025
Move Fast and Break… Rights? Balancing innovation and governance
ON STAGE · 2025
Taking the governance argument to the people who ship the product
MAIN STAGE · 2025
Julie Wenah, DCRC chairwoman, moderating the opening panel
THE ROOM · 2025
Product leaders in the room where the systems get decided
PROGRAM TEAM · 2025
The panel and program team after the session
CONFERENCE FLOOR · 2025
A full floor for a conversation about rights
WASHINGTON, DC · 2024
White House convening on biometric data
EISENHOWER EOB · 2024
Facial recognition and economic impact
ON THE STEPS · 2024
Policymakers, technologists, legal experts
EISENHOWER EOB · 2024
Outside the building, after the session
ARRIVALS · 2024
Into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
THE ROOM · 2024
Where the civil liberties case got made
WORKING SESSION · 2024
Not a panel. A working session
DELEGATES · 2024
The people who sign the rules
Follow the coalition
Research & resources
The receipts.
Published in the open. Read it, cite it, bring it to the hearing.
01
Technical paper · with Partnership on AI & Apple
Eyes Off My Data
Measure bias across demographic groups without harvesting the demographics.
02
Toolkit · Necessary Trouble
Breathing Room
Civic education that makes police accountability structures legible, and then actionable.
03
Legal convening · National Bar Association
Pressuring firms on diversity
How procurement power reshapes professional responsibility inside the legal profession.
02
Toolkit · Necessary Trouble
Breathing Room
Civic education that makes police accountability structures legible, and then actionable.
03
Legal convening · National Bar Association
Pressuring firms on diversity
How procurement power reshapes professional responsibility inside the legal profession.
About us
Nobody in the room understood what was being built.
Since 2019
Founded in 2019 to close the gap between civil rights principle and technical practice. Today that work runs from Washington to Accra to Tokyo.
Julie Wenah · Chairwoman
What we actually do
We put the people who build high-risk systems and the people those systems are built on in the same room, on the record. We publish the research that makes bias measurable. We teach communities to read the machine. And we back founders who would rather own the technology than petition it.
Vision
A world where all people freely, openly, and intentionally exercise digital citizenship.
Method
Translate rights into governance that engineers, regulators, and courts can act on.
Status
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit coalition. Independent of the platforms we hold to account.
Our history
The receipts
Eighteen chapters, 2019 to today ↓ keep scrolling
Chapter 01
2019
The coalition forms
End of the record, so far
Birthed from a group of legal practitioners developing solutions for expanding diverse outside counsel in technology companies.
Chapter 02
2019
Pressure on the legal sector
Partnering with the National Bar Association and legal practitioners, including Past National Bar Association and American Bar Association President Paulette Brown.
Chapter 03
2019
Partnering with National Bar Association on Emerging Technology and Digital Civil Rights
Attorney Julie M. Wenah, Attorney Benjamin Crump, Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, and Donald Martin speaking on emerging technology and civil rights issues.
Chapter 04
2021
Make Breathing Room
The Necessary Trouble Toolkit makes police accountability structures legible to a neighborhood, not just a newsroom.
Chapter 05
2024
HCL Technologies at the World Economic Forum in Davos
DCRC discussed emerging technology, predictive models and systems with HCL Technology led by Journalist and Filmmaker Richard Liu.
Chapter 06
2024
Lifting Women and Economic Opportunity in Davos
DCRC discussing global economic opportunity and building responsible technology in the Equality Lounge at the World Economic Forum with Female Quotient.
Chapter 07
2024
Briefing The Congressional Black Caucus
DCRC briefs U.S. Representative Yvette D. Clarke and U.S. Representative Troy Carter on the economic outcomes of emerging technology.
Chapter 08
2024
Facial Recognition in the White House
DCRC convenes at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on facial recognition and biometric data as it relates to housing, employment, credit, law enforcement, and workforce development.
Chapter 09
2025
Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Meeting with Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa’s senior leaders alongside DCRC’s Board Member, Attorney Benjamin Crump.
Chapter 10
2025
AI Leadership Breakfast in Accra, Ghana
AI Leadership Breakfast in Accra, Ghana, with Ghanaian government officials, academia, business leaders, and legal professionals hosted by DCRC Chairwoman Julie M. Wenah, and DCRC Board Member, Attorney Benjamin Crump.
Chapter 11
2025
Japan’s Academic AI Leaders
Cross-border governance discussions with the University of Tokyo.
Chapter 12
2025
Women Driving Change
Women Creating Change NYC: panels, keynotes and strategy sessions on gender equity, economic justice, safety, education, reproductive justice and civic participation.
Chapter 13
2025
Sports and Entertainment Law and The Diaspora
At the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association: business and law as the instruments for connecting the diaspora through sport, fashion and entertainment, led by Attorney Joseph K. West.
Chapter 14
2025
ILBCF Policy Summit
DCRC partners with Illinois Black Caucus Foundation on emerging technology and regulation.
Chapter 15
2026
The Power Of Networks
At the Black Women in Venture Capital retreat in Martha’s Vineyard, the panelists discuss harnessing network power.
Chapter 16
2026
The Future Of Work: Automated Systems in HR
The future of HR and innovation: what changes for people inside an institution when hiring and evaluation become automated.
Chapter 17
2026
Training for The Careers Of Tomorrow
A fireside chat with University of California’s Provost, Katherine Newman on the future of workforce and academia’s role in it: who trains for the careers of tomorrow.
Chapter 18
2026
Building A New World: Music and Social Change
Babel Tower: Building a New World, with ZekeUltra, intergenerational discussion on reimagining a new world through music, art, and social change.
Digital Civil Rights Coalition
The record continues
The record continues
Scroll to turn · 01 / 18
By the numbers
6+
Years of impact
5
Core workstreams
3
Pillars
4
Continents
Our work
Access.
Accountability.
Advancement.
3 pillars · 9 programs
Three pillars, nine programs, one test: does this technology leave people more free than it found them?
01
01
Three programs
Access
Nobody gets left on the wrong side of the interface.
Digital literacy is a fundamental right. We build the education that arrives before the technology does, so communities meet new systems as participants rather than subjects.
Fund this work →01
Digital literacy programs
Practical curriculum on data, identity, and consent for communities at the margin.
02
Community education
Public sessions that translate technical policy into what it means on your street.
03
Emerging tech briefings
Early-warning briefings for advocates and local officials on what is about to be deployed.
02
02
Three programs
Accountability
If a system can accuse you, it can be audited.
Facial recognition, risk scoring, and automated screening already make decisions that used to require a person and a reason. We make those systems answerable.
Fund this work →01
Facial recognition policy
From the 2024 White House convening to state-level limits on biometric deployment.
02
Algorithmic bias assessment
Eyes Off My Data, with Partnership on AI and Apple: measure bias without harvesting demographics.
03
Law enforcement oversight
The Necessary Trouble Toolkit: accountability structures made legible and actionable.
03
03
Three programs
Advancement
Stop asking for a seat. Build the table.
Representation in someone else's product roadmap is not power. Ownership is. We move our community from users to builders to owners.
Fund this work →01
Founder pipelines
Routes into technology building for people the industry keeps overlooking.
02
Product-building labs
Hands-on labs where community teams ship real tools, not prototypes for a pitch day.
03
Capital and ownership
Generational wealth treated as a civil rights outcome, not a side effect.
The coalition
Nobody wins this alone.
In the room
Researchers, law schools, bar associations, legislators, and community organizations, assembled around specific technologies, not general goodwill.
Partners and collaborators
Every room,
the same argument
Venture
BWiVC · Martha’s Vineyard
Academic
Ghana Law School
Industry
Human Tech Week · SF
Academic
Kyoto Law School
Legal
National Bar Association
Policy
White House EEOB
Legislative
Congressional Black Caucus
Civic
Women Creating Change
Advocacy
NBPLA
Stage
TED · Vancouver
Series
DCRC Decoded
Drag
Partnership on AI
Five seats, one table
How the coalition works
No single discipline can see the whole of an automated system. The coalition is built so that each one covers what the others cannot.
-
01 Research partners
Methods that make harm measurable
Where it shows upEyes Off My Data, bias assessment frameworks -
02 Legal partners
Standing, precedent, professional pressure
Where it shows upNational Bar Association convenings, amicus work -
03 Academic partners
Cross-border governance scholarship
Where it shows upUniversity of Tokyo and Kyoto Law School roundtables -
04 Legislative allies
Hearings, briefings, statutory language
Where it shows upCongressional Black Caucus briefing, 2024 -
05 Community organizations
The lived record of what deployment does
Where it shows upDigital literacy programs, Necessary Trouble Toolkit
Take action
The rules are being written right now.
Act today
Fund the side you want writing them, then take one of the actions below.
Pledge here
Fund the fight
Your contribution funds the research, community education, and policy advocacy that protects digital rights for the people least able to opt out. DCRC is a 501(c)(3); your gift may be tax-deductible.
Watch · why this matters
Inside the White House convening
0:19 · Washington, DC
Action center
Money is not the only thing we need
Petition
Sign the Digital Declaration of Rights
Put your name to clear boundaries for technology in society, and we take the list to the hearing.
Take action →
Event
Attend a convening
Sit in the room with the people deciding how these systems get deployed. Before they get deployed.
See dates →
Partner
Bring your organization in
Research, legal, academic, legislative, community: there is a seat at the table for each of them.
Join us →
Volunteer
Teach a literacy session
Run a data-and-consent workshop in your own neighborhood. We supply the curriculum.
Get the kit →
Pressure
Write your representative
One letter, prewritten, on biometric limits in your state. Two minutes and your name is on the record.
Send it →
Give
Become a monthly supporter
Recurring money is what lets us commit to a fight before we know how long it runs.
Give monthly →Know before it ships
We send the briefing the week a system goes up for procurement, not the month after it is deployed.
Stay informed
Policy developments, research drops, and openings to act. No filler.
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Media & resources
The library
Open access
Published research, toolkits, and convening records, plus how to reach us for press.
All
Reports
Toolkits
Convenings
Press
Technical paper
Eyes Off My Data: differentially private federated statistics
Partnership on AI and Apple: bias assessment that does not require harvesting demographics.
Toolkit
Breathing Room: a creative coalition
The Necessary Trouble Toolkit: police accountability made legible and actionable.
Legal convening
Tech companies are pressuring firms on diversity
National Bar Association: procurement power and professional responsibility.
Press
For interviews, background briefings, or comment on biometric and algorithmic policy, reach the team directly. We respond to journalists first.
info@digitalcivilrights.comCoverage
Law.com
It's Nice That
Partnership on AI