The 3 Things You Must Do to Protect Your Privacy While Protesting
Now that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has the power to surveil protesters in the wake of the horrifying George Floyd killing, it's vital to scrub your photos' metadata.
It's equally important to turn off location services and blur fellow protesters' faces.
And, if possible, use a secure messaging app, like Signal.
Over the last week, people in all 50 states in the U.S.—and well over a dozen cities across the globe—have protested against police brutality and systemic racism after George Floyd, a black man living in Minneapolis, was killed in police custody on May 25.
But now that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has granted authority to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to "conduct covert surveillance" on protesters, according to an alarming memo that BuzzFeed obtained, all participating protesters are at risk of being jailed or having police collect intel on them.
So to stay safe while protesting, you need to take a few steps to ensure your digital security: clear all of the metadata from your photos, blur the faces of your fellow protesters, and make sure to turn off location services on your phone. Here's what you should do.
How to Clear Metadata from Your Photos
When taking a digital photo, your phone not only captures an image of what it sees through its lenses, but also records information about your location (right down to the GPS coordinates), the date and time, your shutter settings and device, and even the type of software you used to edit. All of this information is known as metadata, and it makes it far easier for authorities to track protesters and nail down their identities.
To maintain privacy, you need to clear all of the metadata connected to your photos. This is known as "Exchangeable Image File Format," or EXIF.
While there are various ways to do this from a laptop, it's easier to use apps on the go when you may not have access to a computer. I used an app called Photo Metadata Remover because it's available for Android, and I have a Google Pixel 3a. But if you have an Apple device, try out Metasniffer or Xeefer, which are also free and easy to use.
Once you've downloaded the free Photo Metadata Remover app, open it and select the "Choose Photos" option. You can also select a folder to upload images as a batch, which may be helpful if you plan to post a series of images from the protests to your social media account. (Just remember: Authorities are definitely tracking popular hashtags on Twitter and Instagram that are associated with the protests).
Once you've selected the image, you'll be prompted to select a folder on your device to store the new metadata-free images. I used my Downloads folder because it felt most intuitive for my habits, but it may be smart to create a new folder specifically for your metadata-cleared images so you don't get them bungled up.
If you're at a protest in real time, the easiest way to use the app is to simply use the built-in camera button, which will automatically erase the metadata once you've taken the image.
These are two screenshots I took to show you the difference in the metadata. On the left is the original image and its accompanying metadata. On the right is the same image after I ran it through the metadata-remover app. Notice the scrubbed image only really shows the date the file was created, while the original shows the exact latitude and longitude where I took the photo of the homemade pizza.
💡Tip: It is possible to prevent your phone from storing location metadata in a photo file to begin with, although we do suggest double-checking before posting. To do that, go to your phone's Settings > Location > turn off location permission for your camera app (or whichever app you use to take photos).
How to Blur Out Protesters' Faces
If you're at a protest with hundreds or thousands of people, you won't be able to avoid some interventions that police can use to track you.
Saira Hussain, a lawyer for the San Francisco-based nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, told NPR Marketplace that law enforcement not only has access to tools like CCTV networks, gunshot detection, stingrays (cell site simulators), facial recognition, and aerial surveillance, but can also acquire feeds from private networks, like Ring home security cams.
You can choose to wear a face covering or a mask to get past that—you should already be wearing a cloth face mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19—but it will be downright impossible to account for everyone else's fashion choices. That means your images will definitely contain some faces, and you need to blur them out to ensure the police and employers can't trace other protesters or reprimand them for attending.
Our recommendation: Download the Signal Private Messenger app. Again, you want an app that's easy to use anywhere, but one that also encrypts your conversations. To communicate about protest details, don't post about it on Facebook or respond publicly to events that can tie you to the scene. Instead, use Signal.
Once you've downloaded Signal, which is free on both Android and iOS, set up the permissions, sign up with your phone number, and create a PIN. Then, you can start chatting or taking photos with the camera tool at the bottom right of the screen.
To blur a face, select the symbol that looks like a circle with a checker pattern inside, third from the right. As of press time, I couldn't access the tool just yet—Signal just announced it on Wednesday—but the app has already submitted the update to both Android and iOS marketplaces, so it should be available soon.
In the meantime, you can use the free Blur Face app on Android, and the free Photo Blur Editor on iOS. Keep in mind that sometimes authorities are able to recover the faces behind the blurred-out space, so you may want to scribble on protesters' faces with a drawing tool, like the one native to Instagram stories, for example.
And, ironically enough, algorithmic bias toward white faces means these tools do sometimes skip over black people's faces. Make sure to double check that all faces are blurred, and if the tool missed some, both apps allow you to manually blur those missed spots.
How to Turn Off Location Services
Your phone puts out signals that can show not only where you are, but where you've been. So make sure to turn off location services.
On iOS Devices
Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Turn off access for every app.
On Android
Settings > Security and Location > click on the Location subhead under Privacy > toggle Use Location to off.
Better yet, turn your phone off or put it into Airplane Mode, which turns off cellular data, WiFi, and Bluetooth. In the event you're arrested, this will keep evidence about your location under wraps; your phone won't be able to ping any cell towers, which could help authorities triangulate your location.
This also keeps you safe from sting-ray attacks, wherein cops use a surveillance tool to tap into your phone, track you, and potentially intercept communications.
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