Mobile reverse engineering to empower the gig economy workers and labor unions (37c3)

[Reversing.works](https://reversing.works) will outline five years of experience linking trade unions, gig economy workers, GDPR and mobile app reverse engineering. Goal: to replicate an effective form of resistance. This talk will describe our efforts to introduce a new toolkit and mindset for unions and gig workers, which is essential in an era where, for a growing number of people, "an app is their boss". Our work highlights the critical role of technical literacy in improving workers' bargaining power, particularly in collective bargaining. By demystifying the technology that governs them, we aim to equip workers with the tools to assert their rights and shape a fairer working landscape. Since 2019, our team, back in time known as [Tracking.Exposed](https://tracking.exposed) and now operating as [Reversing.Works](https://reversing.works), has focused on connecting mobile app reverse engineering with GDPR and workers' rights. We want to tell this story, all the missteps, the low-hanging fruit that hacktivists across Europe can grab, and the opportunities that new regulations open up in this sense. In 2023, a [report](https://reversing.works/posts/2023/10/report-exercising-workers-rights-in-algorithmic-management-systems/) written for the European Trade Union Institute summarized our investigation into Glovo, in this talk we'll talk about how to repeat the investigations and, with varying complexity, how unionist and activists can start identifying potential data breaches and labor rights violations in mobile apps used by gig economy workers. about this event: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2023/hub/event/mobile_reverse_engineering_to_empower_the_gig_economy_workers_and_labor_unions/