Cellphones and protests

This article is an up to date model of The Markup’s original article on put together your telephone for a protest, printed in 2020.

No Kings Day protests are going down this Saturday throughout the nation. For the second time throughout this administration, organizers predict tens of millions of individuals will hit the streets to declare that “in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption and cruelty.”

Before going to a protest, demonstrators or observers ought to be aware their cellphones might topic them to surveillance ways by legislation enforcement. If your cellphone is on and unsecured, your location could be tracked and your unencrypted communications, corresponding to SMS, could also be intercepted. Additionally, police might retrieve your messages and the content material of your telephone in the event that they take custody of your telephone, or later by warrant or subpoena.

Deciding How and If to Bring Your Phone

Your proximity to organizers of a protest, your immigration standing (right here’s what to know should you’re requested about your immigration standing at a protest) and different components imply there isn’t a one-size-fits-all privateness recommendation for whether or not to convey your cell phone to a protest.

“All protesting and all marches are a series of balancing acts of different priorities and acceptable risks,” stated Mason Donahue, a member of Lucy Parsons Labs, a Chicago-based group of technologists and activists who run digital safety coaching courses and have investigated the Chicago Police Department’s use of surveillance expertise. “There is a lot of communication ability that goes away if you don’t bring a phone period,” he stated.

Leaving your telephone behind means the information it holds and transmits would be the most secure it’ll ever be, but it surely additionally means giving up entry to necessary assets. It turns into way more tough to coordinate with others or get updates from social media. For many, telephone cameras are additionally the one approach they’ll doc what’s occurring.

If you’ve gotten entry to a separate telephone, whether or not it’s a “burner” phone, an outdated smartphone which you can reset or an old style digicam, you would select to convey these units as an alternative of your frequently used telephone. However, not everybody has entry to those units or can afford to buy a separate telephone only for protesting.

If you’re taking your cellular phone with you, the remainder of this information runs by reduce dangers to your privateness.

Use a Passcode, Not a Fingerprint

Fingerprint and face locks could also be handy methods to safe your telephone, however they don’t at all times work in your favor in case your telephone is seized by legislation enforcement.

In the United States, the Fifth Amendment grants folks the best to not be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against” themselves. When it comes as to whether you’re obligated to unlock your smartphone, your Fifth Amendment safety varies relying on whether or not you’re utilizing a passcode or biometrics like a fingerprint or face scans.

Courts have made opposing rulings on whether or not the Fifth Amendment applies to each passcodes and biometric locks, and most lately, a federal appeals courtroom dominated that legislation enforcement can compel an individual to unlock their telephone utilizing their fingerprint. On the entire, in case you are selecting to convey your telephone, privacy experts recommend that you simply use a passcode as your only option, but it surely isn’t failsafe.

“Police have these tools by Cellebrite, which essentially try to do tons and tons of guesses really fast on your phone to see what the passcode is. It works pretty effectively for the police because most people use fairly predictable and simple numerical codes,” defined David Huerta, a digital safety coach on the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

He recommends utilizing an alphanumeric passcode, the longer the higher. To add an alphanumeric passcode:

iPhone: Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Turn Passcode On or Change Passcode > Passcode Options > Custom Alphanumeric CodeAndroid: Settings > Security > Screen Lock > PasswordTo flip your biometric lock off:

iPhone: Settings > Face ID & Passcode >Tap Reset Face IDAndroid: Settings > Security & location > Pixel Imprint > Click Delete subsequent to every fingerprintJennifer Granick, Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel on the American Civil Liberties Union, instructed The Markup, “It is legal to refuse to unlock your phone or to disclose your passcode, citing your Fifth Amendment rights if possible. There should be no negative ramifications.” Granick famous nevertheless, that police don’t at all times act lawfully.

Subdue Your Signals (and Download Signal)

Protesters needs to be ready for surveillance of their cellphone’s transmissions — even when they don’t make any calls, Huerta stated.

In some elements of the United States, legislation enforcement has instruments that may intercept cellphone indicators, known as “stingrays” or “IMSI catchers.” Stingrays collect the identifying details of telephones within the space by “impersonating” cell towers, and newer fashions are believed to have the ability to intercept calls and messages, based on TechCrunch.

In 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union identified 75 companies in 27 states and the District of Columbia that owned stingrays.

You can configure your telephone to keep away from connecting to the subset of stingrays that use 2G connections:

iPhone: Settings > Privacy & Security > Lockdown ModeAndroid (v12 or newer): Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs > [Carrier] > Allow 2G > OffNote that activating “Lockdown Mode” on iPhone will limit your telephone use, and improve your safety, in quite a lot of different methods; see the hyperlink above for extra particulars. Similarly, chances are you’ll expertise much less dependable mobile connectivity on Android with out the 2G choice enabled.

Huerta stated that since a few of these units can scoop up textual content messages, you need to use an encrypted messaging app like Signal or WhatsApp as an alternative of your default one. (For iPhone customers, iMessage is encrypted, however be warned: If you textual content with an Android telephone person, it routinely switches to SMS, which isn’t.)

Huerta recommends Signal over different apps as a result of it’s battle-tested: In 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia served a subpoena on Open Whisper Systems, the corporate that makes the app, looking for details about two Signal customers for a federal grand jury investigation. The solely info the corporate was holding? The time the customers’ accounts had been created and the date the customers final linked to the app’s servers.

Lockdown Location Tracking

Law enforcement also can request “cell tower dumps” from telecom suppliers. In its February 2020 transparency report, AT&T disclosed that it received 1,289 demands for cell tower searches through the second half of 2019. The firm stated that the calls for “ask us to supply all phone numbers registered on a selected cell tower for a sure time frame.”

Because of the risk of such surveillance, some experts suggest turning off your cellphone altogether at a protest. For instance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends turning your phone off or enabling airplane mode while you’re at the protest, because it ensures that your device won’t be transmitting signals.

But turning off your phone means you won’t be able to communicate with others or use your camera to record. So if you have to keep your phone on, try to at least manage what location information your apps may have. The Verge has a useful information for Android customers, and Business Insider has a comparable one for iPhone customers.

You may even flip off all location providers solely:

iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Toggle Location Services offAndroid: Settings > Location > Toggle Use location off 

Harden Your Hardware

Another state of affairs that Huerta prompt that protesters contemplate is what to do in case your telephone is seized by legislation enforcement. If you possibly can, again up your system earlier than heading out to make the choice to wipe it if you end up in a decent state of affairs somewhat bit simpler. There are tutorials for each iPhone and Android customers.

Encrypting your telephone additionally makes it tougher to entry info if it’s been seized, as a result of information can solely be learn if somebody has the encryption key. DuckDuckGo, the privacy-oriented search engine, has step-by-step instructions for each iPhone and Android customers.

Neutralize Notifications

Notifications are usually an effective way to rapidly examine messages, but when your telephone is misplaced or seized, it could reveal info that you simply’re not snug sharing with others.

“Many times, if you don’t have a chance to turn off your phone before a device gets seized, even if law enforcement can’t unlock your phone,” Huerta stated, in case your notifications are on, “they don’t even have to unlock your phone, they can just scroll down and see everything that you’re up to.”

Reducing the quantity of open info that sits in your locked display screen can enhance the safety of you and the folks you’re speaking with.

On Android, you possibly can strip notifications of context by going to Settings > App & notifications > Notifications, going to the “Lock screen” part and turning off Sensitive notifications.

With iPhones, you possibly can change how detailed an app’s notifications are by going Settings > Notifications, choosing that app after which scrolling all the way down to the Options part and setting “Show Previews” to “Never” and “Notification Grouping” to “Automatic.”

You also can flip off notifications solely:

iPhone: Settings > Notifications > Set Show Previews to NeverAndroid: Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications > Notifications on lock display screen or On lock display screen > Don’t present notifications

Think Before You Share

Photos and movies can reveal greater than you plan.

Image information can contain metadata that features the date the picture was taken, the make and mannequin of the system it was shot on, and even the GPS location of the place it was taken. One of the best methods to strip a photograph of its accompanying metadata is to take a screenshot of it and put up that as an alternative of the unique picture, Huerta explains.

And even should you use a screenshot, examine the picture for info you may not wish to make public, corresponding to indications of location and the id of different folks.

Law enforcement has entry to powerful facial recognition databases. Civilians even have tools in reach that may reverse engineer the who, what, and the place of your social media posts. One method to mitigate these is to cowl up figuring out info utilizing an emoji or by drawing over it with a stable colour.

Signal Messenger additionally permits customers to blur the faces of people in its digicam picture editor.

Physicalize Your Phonebook

Phones can run out of battery or get misplaced, damaged or taken away. Don’t make it your solely method to entry necessary contact info.

Reporter Madeleine Davies suggested writing down the telephone variety of a lawyer or emergency contact in your arm with a Sharpie.

The National Lawyers Guild operates legal support hotlines throughout the United States which are particularly for individuals who have been arrested at political demonstrations. Look up a hotline in your space and write it down.

This article was originally published on The Markup and was republished beneath the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.