This Gen Z-created tool helps fight digital surveillance

I DM my friends on Instagram. I take the metro every day. I am a journalist. Because of these simple facts, I find myself unwittingly the target of a vast surveillance network that knows who I am, what I say, and how I spend my time, online and offline. And I’m pretty careful about what Big Tech gets out of me.

Yet our daily habits are a treasure trove of monitoring information: the apps we use; public spaces riddled with facial recognition technology; AI assistants that know who we are and what we like; the places we shop, the smartwatches we wear, the phone you’re probably reading this article on. Even the most cautious continue to release data around the world, but how can we spot where we are particularly vulnerable and what should we do to feel safer?

A new campaign by youth digital rights organization Gen Z For Change hopes to offer a solution. Today, the group is launching “Eyes on AI” — a designated landing page offering a first-of-its-kind surveillance assessment tool that lets you see exactly how the government and its big tech allies are collecting your data.

Cheyenne Hunt, executive director of Gen Z For Change, told Mashable that the current political administration presents an alarming surveillance threat to youth organizations, including the group’s leaders, many of whom are young people of color who have had negative interactions with government entities, like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And as digital organizers, they face the irony of having to use the very tools, like social media, that threaten their own safety.

“We had to very quickly become acutely aware of the fact that we are being monitored in a really intense and new way by the government, its partners and Big Tech,” Hunt said. “And this collusion is open.”

But everyone, not just organizers or journalists, is vulnerable, Hunt said. With Eyes on AI, individuals of all backgrounds have the tools to assess their own risks. “Warrantless surveillance is completely legal and relies on artificial intelligence,” informs visitors to the website. “AI-based monitoring tools read your data, learn your routine and create a profile about you to eat into your privacy.”

The Eyes on AI assessment tool is designed to mimic the types of strangely insightful games and memes that often go viral online, its creators tell Mashable, like horoscope mood boards, AIs that judge your Spotify statsor the viral rice purity test. Only in this case, this feeling of knowing isn’t presented as something fun and silly – its stakes are exceptionally high. “Your future is for sale,” the campaign reminds viewers.

Credit: Gen Z for Change

“We have standardized monitoring and data collection, which is not normal and actually very, very terrifying,” said Dominique Demetz, creative director of Gen Z For Change and one of the project’s coders. Demetz explained that the Eyes on AI tool, which almost feels like being inducted (and then rejected) by a top-secret spy agency, is meant to destabilize you.

Immediately after clicking, the “agent” on the other end knows your IP address. And you don’t need to provide him with any other personal information for him to understand how you are being monitored. All it needs to know is what apps you use, how you pay for groceries, whether you get spam often, or whether you’re currently a student (it doesn’t even need to know where you go to school).

That’s intentional, said Hana Memon, Gen Z For Change digital strategist, organizer and creator of Eyes on AI. In accordance with its own principles, the resource does not ask the user to provide personally identifiable information that could be collected and used by an outside party, such as race or immigration status, but it can still learn a lot about you and your digital hygiene.

“The goal is to show how every aspect of your life, from how you travel, to the religious apps you use, to your health care provider, is connected in a surveillance network,” Memon said.

The tool does not save any user input or reports. Everything is done locally and run in JavaScript, and Gen Z For Change offers it to the public on GitHub.

The young people were used as laboratory rats by these companies.

Eyes on AI pulls information from digital privacy watchdogs, like Monitoringinteractive databases Electronic Frontier Foundationthe Surveillance Atlas of Tech StocksWorkforce resources, including explainers on bossware or technologies used to spy on employees. The tool was built over several months by a team of just over a dozen Gen Z organizers, coders and activists.

Eyes on AI intelligently guides users through the many ways their lives are recorded and sold to surveillance devices. They then have the option to download a full report, including recommendations for limiting personal data collection, resources on surveillance threats, and a glossary of some of the major surveillance players who may process their data, including ICE and other government entities. Your custom threats are classified by the technology itself, as if you are at risk due to automated license plate readers (ALPR) or predictive policing.

Credit: Gen Z for Change

Credit: Gen Z for Change

Gen Z For Change has evolved significantly since its initial conception in 2020 as a youth-led, social media-focused movement builder. The organization views strategic coding as a weapon against political and technological oligarchies that have shamelessly wielded their influence to gain power under what Hunt called “Trump 2.0.” According to her, the massive acceleration of AI has only made the situation worse.

Gen Z For Change is behind many of the viral tools used by online organizers. Last year they launched a resource to help pressure hotels to deny boarding to ICE agents. The group’s team and network of affiliated creators were working behind the scenes to galvanize votes for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Previous coding campaigns include the Generation Z for the Palestinian resource centerimmigration resource toolkit STRUGGLE,, and abortion organization tool SAFER.

“Made with ❤️ by Generation Z for kids who embrace change,” we can read on the site.

On the ground, the organization is preparing for a massive activation that will see its creator network – a group of politically connected creators with a collective 500 million followers – warning their viewers and loved ones about surveillance capitalism. Posters and billboards will be displayed in major cities. A massive 1984A style warning will soon be projected onto the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, featuring Demetz’s own eyeball. This will also be accompanied by a political push at the federal level. The country still lacks comprehensive privacy regulations.

Lending their time – and retinal data – to the project, the team is implementing their own Eyes on AI recommendations to protect their work, including relying on encrypted messaging platforms, sweeping their information from data brokers, and paying close attention to how they move in public spaces.

“These companies are using young people as lab rats,” Hunt said. Gen Z For Changes wants to help the rats fight back.