Privacy · Surveillance · Digital civil liberties
You don’t have to accept being tracked as the cost of going online.
We’re a student club at Pitt. We cover the tools that protect you and the policies that let the tracking happen.
What this page can already see
You didn’t type any of this. Your browser sent it on its own, and a site you log into gets far more. None of it leaves your browser here.
Corners like these mark everything on this site that is about you — what your browser volunteered and any wording we picked for your setup. Everything outside them reads the same for every visitor.
The AI you pick decides who can read what you type.
18 of 35assistants we checked train on what you type by default.7 never see it at all, because they run on your own device.
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7On your device
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4Verifiable
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4Doesn’t see you
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2Sees you, won’t train
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7Trains by default, you can opt out
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3Trains, and feeds ad profiles
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8Trains, no opt-out, foreign law
What we point people to first
Checking your browser…
Browsing
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Instead of
your ISP logging every domain, use
MullvadFlat rate, no account required, keeps no logs.
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Instead of
every site seeing your IP address, use
Tor BrowserRoutes through Tor, so no single party sees both who you are and what you load.
Accounts
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Instead of
one password, reused everywhere, use
BitwardenOpen-source vault, free across all your devices.
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Instead of
codes sent by text message, use
Ente AuthEncrypted TOTP codes that sync and export cleanly.
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Instead of
your real email on every signup, use
SimpleLoginA separate alias per signup. Kill the ones that get sold.
Messages and money
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Instead of
an inbox your provider scans, use
Proton MailEncrypted inbox, based in Switzerland.
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Instead of
iMessage, WhatsApp and Instagram DMs, use
SignalEnd-to-end encrypted. Keeps almost no metadata.
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Instead of
a card record of every purchase, use
MoneroDigital cash. Private by default, not by policy.
We take no money from anyone on this list.Full toolkit — why we chose each one
You’re on camera crossing campus. Ask whether any of it is facial recognition, and Pitt doesn’t have to tell you.
Pitt publishes a camera policy and keeps footage about a month — but on facial recognition it has said nothing. As a state-related university it’s largely exempt from Pennsylvania’s open-records law, so a request a fully public school would have to answer, Pitt can decline. We didn’t ask the schools anything — you can’t make most of them answer. We took six plain questions any student might have and filled them in from the public record: what each school publishes, and on-the-record reporting where it doesn’t. One of those six decides all the rest.
On that one, four of Pennsylvania’s state-related schools stand behind the same exemption. The two fully public schools don’t get to.
Can a public-records request compel an answer?
Checked Jul 10, 2026- University of PittsburghState-related · PA · your campusExempt
- Penn StateState-related · PAExempt
- Temple UniversityState-related · PAExempt
- Lincoln UniversityState-related · PAExempt
- West Chester UniversityPublic · PASSHEMust answer
- UCLAPublic · CaliforniaMust answer
Judged on whether you can get an answer — not on how much surveillance a campus runs. Every filled answer traces to what the school itself publishes.
It’s free, open to everyone at Pitt, and joining takes about a minute.
No dues, no experience needed. Come to a meeting, or leave your name and we’ll tell you when the next one is.
Join the clubSee upcoming meetingsOne officer role is still open