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About this guide
What is a Digital Security Helpline for Civil Society?
Why this guide
How to Use This Guide
Additional resources
Explore
1.
Design Your Framework
1.1 Define Your Constituency1.2 Analyse Your Constituency's Needs1.3 Define Your Mission1.4 Define Your Setting1.5 Define Your Core Services1.6 Communicating with your Constituency1.7 Define Your Policies
2.
Make a Realistic Plan
2.1 Create a Budget2.2 Decide How Your DSHCS Will Get Funded2.3 Office and Physical Security2.4 Network Security2.5 Infrastructure and Tooling2.6. Team Management
3.
Incident Handling Process
3.1 Preparation3.2 Detection and Analysis3.3 Containment, Eradication and Recovery3.4 Post-Incident Activity3.5 Documentation of Procedures
4.
Beyond Your Team: Networking and Quality Assurance
4.1 Create and Nourish Your Network of Partners4.2 Referrals4.3 Threat Information Sharing4.4 Quality Assurance

Organisation name

Framework template

1. Our Constituency

  • Who are the beneficiaries of your DSHCS? Detail activity, field, gender, age, etc. The more accurately your constituency is defined the better you will be able to identify their needs and increase the quality of the service provided.
  • What is the geographical scope of your constituency?
  • Are there other DSHCSs providing services to the same constituency in your region? In such case what unattended needs will your DSHCS cover?

2. Our Constituency's Needs

If you decide, e.g., to support indigenous communities from a certain region, you could make a SWOT analysis to characterise them. For example:

Helpful Harmful
Internal Strengths
They are very well organised and have access to a wide range of resources.		 Weaknesses
Vertical structure centralises decision making.
External Opportunities
Many International Cooperation Agencies are allocating funds to indigenous communities.		 Threats
Increasing criminalisation of indigenous communities.

Now try using the same table for your beneficiaries:

Helpful Harmful
Internal Strengths
Describe your constituency's strengths		 Weaknesses
Describe your constituency's weaknesses
External Opportunities
Describe your constituency's opportunities		 Threats
Describe the threats affecting your constituency

You can complement the SWOT framework with a PESTLE analysis of the context in which your constituency operates.

Constituency Political Economical Socio-Cultural Technological Legal Environmental
Indigenous communities from X region ... ... ... ... ... ...

Our Threat Model

Threat Matrix

Likelihood / Impact Low Medium High
Likely ... ... ...
Less Likely ... ... ...
Unlikely ... ... ...

Threat Inventory

Fill in a table for each threat identified in the threat matrix.

Title
Description Brief characterisation of the threat.

What Target Adversary How Where
The impacts the threat would cause What or who is the target Who do you think is behind the threat? The means by which the threat can come to fruition What are the physical spaces the threat can manifest?
... ... ... ... ...

3. Our Mission

What are your helpline's goals? Your mission statement should define your constituency, the situation you want to help overcome and how you plan to do it, as well as what services your helpline will provide.


Organisation Name - Mission
Describe your mission here:

.........
.........
.........
.........

4. Setting

  • Will you be part of a larger organisation or constitute an independent project?
  • Will you be volunteer-based or hire a team?
  • How will your DSHCS will be funded?

5. Core Services

Service type Service Requirements
Reactive Equipment replacement Access to funding. Maybe we can refurbish old equipment for emergencies.
Preventative In-Person Digital Security Training Need to find trainers in the area where the trainings will happen
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...

6. Communication with your Constituency

Decide How Your Constituency Can Get in Touch

Channel Advantages Disadvantages Accessibility for our constituency Are we going to use it?
Form in website Easy to install. Can be encrypted Risk of spam Accessible Yes
Telephone Everybody can access a phone to call us SIM cards need to be registered with an ID. Accessible No
... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ...

Declare Your Availability and Response Time

  • Operation hours:
  • How will support requests outside of operational hours be attended to?
  • How will the DSHCS prevent burnout of team members on call?

Decide How to Communicate with Your Constituency

  • Will operators have an individual pseudonym or will they use a collective one?
  • Does one operator always lead the communication with the person involved in a case? And if it is shared, is the conversation always conducted under the same pseudonym or does it change with each operator?
  • Will the DSHCS adopt an informal tone or will operators keep their distance?

7. Policies

Policy Description Development and implementation Responsible Due date
1. Information Management Policy Procedures on how to manage and protect information. Yes ... ...
2. Incident Response Plan Roadmap for implementing the DSHCS' incident response capability. Yes ... ...
3. Vetting Policy Steps to verify new beneficiaries. Yes ... ...
4. Code of Practice Description of what is expected of the operators' behaviour. Yes, but in a second stage ... ...
5. Standard Operating Procedures Steps for responding to requests, making referrals, etc. Yes ... ...
6. Funding Policy ... ... ... ...
7. ... ... ... ... ...