Panoptykon Foundation

The Panoptykon Foundation is an independent non-governmental organization operating at the intersection of technology and human rights. Since 2009, it has monitored the impact of new technologies on civil liberties, fought against surveillance abuses, and educated the public about threats connected to digital surveillance. The organization works towards greater transparency of public institutions and tech companies, promoting solutions based on ethics, privacy, and social justice. The panoptykon.org website plays a crucial informational and communication role in the foundation's activities, serving as the main source of knowledge, analysis, and commentary.

The project was carried out in a model of partnership-based cooperation, in which each team contributed unique competencies and experience. Thanks to clearly defined roles and close coordination, it was possible to efficiently implement advanced technological solutions while maintaining consistency in the vision and objectives of the Panoptykon Foundation. Below is the breakdown of roles and responsibilities of the project partners.

The external Caltha team was responsible for the main development work, including preparing the frontend layer and full maintenance and updates of the CRM — CiviCRM — managed on behalf of the Panoptykon Foundation. Graphic design was handled by Dariusz Palarczyk, a designer collaborating with the foundation. IT administration duties were carried out by Paweł Szczęsny.

Our team provided support for advanced data migration, creating tools integrated with CiviCRM, and implementing an Apache Solr-based search engine. Our specialists also provided ongoing technical consultation to the Caltha team.

Overall project coordination was handled by the Panoptykon Foundation, ensuring smooth communication and fulfillment of project objectives.

The project stood out due to its atypical collaboration model — responsibility for various implementation areas was divided between two companies. Such a setup brings additional organizational challenges, but thanks to open communication and transparency, competencies from all involved teams could be efficiently combined and the project successfully completed.

The work involved not a simple update but a thorough redesign of the service — both visually and functionally.

Key challenges faced by our team included: developing a modern search engine based on Apache Solr, equipped with advanced filters and faceted navigation; comprehensive data migration from the old Drupal 7-based site, involving careful adaptation and precise mapping of the data structure; implementation of dynamic donation and newsletter blocks fully integrated with CiviCRM; and collaboration with the Panoptykon Foundation’s IT administrator in configuring the hosting environment.

We implemented advanced solutions in Drupal with a continuous, iterative approach to addressing issues and systematically testing new functionalities. One particularly demanding task was implementing faceted search — off-the-shelf modules on the market did not meet all our needs, so multiple adjustments and customizations were required, and community support proved limited. Ultimately, using the search_api and facets modules enabled us to develop an advanced search engine.

The data migration process was built on Migrate family modules, whose flexible architecture allowed us to establish a repeatable and easily modifiable migration mechanism. As a result, we could carry out the process multiple times, applying improvements based on feedback from the client and QA team, and continually refining the mapping and processing of source data.

The Panoptykon Foundation gained a modern, secure, and functional website that improves communication and content management. The new site met our client’s expectations, and thanks to the flexibility of the new platform, our team could subsequently complete further tasks connected to the website’s technical support.

Migration of the English-language version from a separate Drupal 7 instance to the language version of the new panoptykon.org, and the integration of the cyfrowa-wyprawka.org project using Drupal's multisite mechanism, resulted in three independent sites being merged into a single unified system. This simplified management and resource optimization.

Further activities included technical support, performance optimization, and the implementation of cache solutions using Redis, which significantly improved the site’s performance and stability even with large data volumes.

The panoptykon.org migration project is an example of effective inter-team collaboration, open communication, and efficient implementation of complex open-source solutions for non-governmental organizations. Today, the Panoptykon Foundation has a website ready for the future — scalable, integrated, and optimized for further development. We currently provide ongoing technical support services for the Panoptykon Foundation, ensuring the continuity and stable operation of their Drupal-based sites.