Technology Freedom Cooperative

Building independent infrastructure for journalism, human rights, and accountability

Invisible Institute is a partner in the Technology Freedom Cooperative (TFC), a collaboration working to strengthen the technical independence of organizations that document state violence, preserve public records and evidence, produce journalism and data analysis, and support human rights and accountability efforts.

The cooperative brings together the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), Invisible Institute, Innocence & Justice Louisiana, Data Cívica, and Kilómetro Cero to build shared technology infrastructure, including distributed storage and computing capacity for preserving, processing, and analyzing critical files. Launched in July 2026 with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the cooperative is designed to help participating organizations maintain greater control over the systems their work depends on.

Why this matters

Journalists, researchers, data analysts, technologists, and human rights organizations increasingly rely on digital infrastructure to preserve evidence, analyze public records, produce data projects, and collaborate across institutions. Much of that work depends on commercial cloud services and proprietary artificial intelligence platforms whose availability may be affected by corporate policy, government pressure, changing legal conditions, service disruptions, or rising costs.

In 2025, news organizations reported that Microsoft had closed the account of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor after the United States imposed sanctions related to the court’s investigations in Gaza. Microsoft disputes that report. The episode nevertheless raised concerns about the vulnerability of organizations whose work depends on commercial technology providers. For groups preserving records of state violence and human rights abuses, losing access to a platform can also mean losing access to information needed for research, reporting, and future accountability efforts.

The Technology Freedom Cooperative was created to establish a different model: trusted nonprofit organizations collectively building and maintaining the infrastructure that supports their work.

What the cooperative is building

The cooperative combines shared infrastructure with shared technical knowledge, allowing participating organizations to preserve data while expanding their capacity to responsibly use emerging technologies.

Its work focuses on four areas:

  • Distributed data preservation. Critical files are backed up in multiple physical locations and legal jurisdictions, including Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe. This reduces the risk that a government action, corporate decision, equipment failure, or loss of a single server could prevent organizations from accessing their data.

  • Independent computing infrastructure. Rather than relying exclusively on commercial AI providers, the cooperative provides self-hosted computing capacity. Members can use open-weight models that are downloaded and operated on equipment managed by the cooperative, allowing the organizations to choose which tools they use and retain private records of their AI sessions.

  • Careful evaluation of artificial intelligence. Participating organizations use human verification and statistical testing to evaluate AI-generated results. This includes assessing reliability as well as completeness, relevance, fidelity to the source material, and the validity of the model’s classifications and summaries.

  • Technical capacity within civil society. Cooperative members are developing skills in server management, data stewardship, software, security, and infrastructure maintenance. The goal is to keep both the technology and the knowledge required to operate it within the participating organizations.

Invisible Institute's role

Invisible Institute’s work includes reporting, public-records research, data analysis, archival projects, and tools that help people understand systems of power. Projects such as the Citizens Police Data Project, the National Police Index, and Beneath the Surface involve preserving, organizing, analyzing, and sharing large collections of public records.

Through the Technology Freedom Cooperative, Invisible Institute is working with trusted partners to strengthen the infrastructure that supports this work. The collaboration offers a way to protect information, build internal technical knowledge, and explore new analytical tools without relying entirely on systems controlled by commercial technology companies.

“This collaboration is unique and inspiring for us as journalists. We believe this decentralized system can be a model and a resource for other journalists in Chicago and beyond, as we collectively build a future where we protect information and work with more freedom and autonomy.”

— Maheen Khan, Director of Technology, Invisible Institute

Invisible Institute’s server within the cooperative is named ida, in honor of Ida B. Wells and her work for civil rights and justice.

Founding partners

The Technology Freedom Cooperative is a collaboration between: