Data Minimalism and Digital Disengagement in COVID-19 Hacktivism

This chapter discusses data minimalism as means of digital disengagement. It focuses on the case of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a German hacker association that is known for high levels of digital skills and tech-political expertise. Specifically, it examines members’ ‘hacktivism’ during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding to COVID-related technology such as contact-tracing apps, the CCC presented recommendations and strategies for digital disengagement through data minimalism and technological downgrading. Advocating for partial or more substantial digital disengagement, the hacker association stressed that digital approaches are not preferable per se: instead, their adequacy should be assessed in relation to the specific problem, while also considering the advantages of low(er)-tech options. In this way, the hacker association confronted data expansionism and tech solutionism, which were flourishing under the pretext of epidemiological urgency. In exploring the CCC’s hacktivism, this chapter elaborates on digital disengagement as an informed choice and a matter of agency rather than an involuntary ‘anomaly’.