A Guide to Protesting Safely in the Digital Age
RESOURCES
Included is a list of techniques law enforcement use both at the state and federal level to track protestors and make arrests using surveillance, and how to avoid them when protesting injustice.
THE TECHNIQUES
SURFACE LEVEL TRACING
The most basic form of surveillance, this involves tracking protestors based on their public social media posts. This method of tracking a protest is reliant on human error and can be conducted by anyone including individuals outside of law enforcement.
Prevention: Be wary of posting any photos of yourself or friends at protests to accounts that include personal information such as your legal name, date of birth, or place of work.
HASHING
Every single photo posted to the internet is broken down into a string of numbers and letters called its hash value - basically the photo's fingerprint - and matching the hash value to other images is a common method of tracing the source of a photograph spread online. This method has been used in law enforcement to track criminal evidence since at least the early 2000s.
Prevention: Altering the color scheme, crop, or even a few pixels of an image that is reshared across the internet may help to prevent reverse tracking of hashed images.
FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE
Unlike many biometric systems, facial recognition may be used for general surveillance in combination with public video cameras and records of online social media posts, and it can be used in a passive way that doesn't require the knowledge, consent, or participation of the subject. Every time your photo is taken at the DMV or uploaded to the internet, it is added to a state-of-the-art database of all known US citizens. The police are without a doubt depending on organizations like the NSA to provide records of protestors based on their biometric fingerprint. They will use this information to track you, hunt you down, and make arrests if necessary.
Prevention: Wear face masks at protests. Have them on before you even show up to protests. This may not be enough when sharing online, however, so also consider using Everest Pipkin’s Image Scrubber tool to blur out the faces of ALL protestors before posting. In addition, blur out any identifying graphics attached to individuals, such as tattoos or graphic t-shirts.
IP / SERVICE NETWORK TRACKING
Every time you post to the Internet or log onto a social media platform, your IP address is logged; this includes mobile devices, which assign cellular IP addresses through the GeoIP2 Connection Type database. Law enforcement will issue search warrants to network providers in order to track and identify the source of an image or post.
Prevention: Consider using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) before uploading photos of protests to the Internet, or at least use a public Wi-Fi network that cannot be directly traced back to you. In addition, and most importantly, remember to turn off cellular data and location services when showing up to protests.
METADATA COLLECTION
EXIF data (Exchangeable image file format) is an embedded array of text attached to many JPEG and TIFF files that stores the ISO speed, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, camera model and make, date and time, lens used, focal length, etc of images taken on most cameras and mobile devices. Police rely on metadata to track protests and moreover to investigate individuals on a daily basis.
Prevention: Once again, use Everest Pipkin’s Image Scrubber to remove metadata embedded in photos before posting online. All processing happens directly in the browser- no information is stored or sent anywhere, and the tool works offline as well.
A NOTE ON SECURE MESSAGING
It is best to keep all sensitive information encrypted using at least AES-256 encryption standard. One useful mobile application for encrypted messaging is Signal, which allows users to send and receive high-fidelity secure messages. For emails, PGP email encryption is usually the best bet.