Oakland Privacy - Privacy Rights Fellowship 2026–2027

Oakland Privacy, founded in 2013, is an activist group devoted to fighting against government and corporate surveillance and defending privacy rights and governmental transparency. We concentrate on state, regional and local matters, while advocating with other like-minded organizations at the national level
Oakland Privacy has been generously funded by the Omyidar Foundation for a part-time fellow to aid us in our work and help us expand its scope.
This is a unique opportunity to do hands-on implementation of privacy rights and enact social change beyond research and white papers.
Please read the description and application. Forward to others who might be interested or apply yourself. Applications are due by September 30, 2026.
The Privacy Rights Fellowship begins on November 1st, 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter for a duration of one year. The stipend is $2000/month for 80 hours/month, paid quarterly.
This is a unique opportunity to do hands-on implementation of enhanced privacy rights and enact social change beyond research and white papers.
The work would be focused in the following areas:
● State-level Privacy Legislation
The fellow will assist our Advocacy Director with position letters and with analysis of legislative initiatives and do outreach to garner support for desirable proposals. The fellow will become familiar with the CA state legislative process and grassroots advocacy.
● Popular Education
The fellow will help coordinate 2-3 popular education webinars focused on de-jargoning current privacy issues and with presenting issue-based information in an engaging manner.
● Website Upgrades
The fellow will help make some website additions to enhance the resources available on the Oakland Privacy website
The fellow would work closely on these tasks with one or more of our experienced volunteer, experts in advocacy and privacy legislation.
Preferred qualifications: 1+years of experience with privacy-related research, advocacy, study or practice. Relevant experience with technology, public policy or consumer rights will be considered. The fellow should be based in the United States, preferably in the state of California and be eligible to work in the United States. The work schedule can be flexible, but it must encompass the hourly requirement each month for the duration of the year-long fellowship.
Helpful skills include analysis, including reading and reviewing legislative language, some knowledge of local and state government processes, website management including WordPress, event coordination, popular education, and a working knowledge of technologies used in online and offline surveillance.
For more on Oakland Privacy and the work we do, visit our website, and check out our current and former campaigns (About Our Work Tab -> Campaigns) and timeline.
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Oakland Privacy Privacy Rights Fellowship 2026-2027
Please send in your fellowship application with a resume and brief answers to the questions listed below by September 30th, 2026.
Please attach your resume or CV. Send these to contact@oaklandprivacy.org
Take as much space as you need. Continue on separate pages if you wish.
1) Why are you interested in this position?
2) Do you have experience in creating advocacy materials? How would you approach explaining a complex technical issue for mainstream audiences?
3) Have you ever worked on a legislative campaign to get a local or a state government body to adopt a policy? If so, what lessons did you learn from that experience? If not, tell us about an experience you’ve had persuading a person or a body to do something they had some concerns about?
4) How much experience do you have working with AI tools, specifically large language models and their like? What is the most extensive or significant thing you have created or produced using AI tools? How can we regulate against the misuse of AI, or can we?
5) In the age of Meta-glasses and digital tracking (cars, phones, refrigerators…) how do we approach protecting the privacy that many people think they lost a long time ago?
6) Is there anything you’ve written that’s been published, or blog posts, or similar, that you would like us to take a look at? Provide links.
7) Can you commit to 80 hours a month for the approximate period of November 1, 2026 to October 31, 2027?
8) Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Work arrangement
No