Just a few days later In 2026, new anger against the Trump administration has already taken hold.
On Wednesday, January 7, a federal immigration agent shot Renée Nicole Good, 37 years old as she attempted to walk away from the scene of an immigration enforcement action in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Despite comments from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complaints that the officer “acted quickly and defensively, fired, to protect himself and those around him” from being run over, video of the incident is clear appears to show that neither the agent nor his colleagues were in danger of being struck by Good’s vehicle.
Protests condemning the shooting — and more broadly the Trump administration’s brutal immigration agenda — erupted almost immediately after news of Good’s killing surfaced. By Thursday, the unrest had only intensified and spread to cities and towns across the United States.
If you are considering joining protests, as is your right under the First Amendment, you need to think beyond your physical well-being to your digital security as well. The same monitoring device This is enabling the Trump administration’s raids on undocumented immigrants and its targeting of left-wing activists who will undoubtedly show up in full force in the streets.
Two key elements of digital surveillance should be a priority for protesters. The first concerns data that authorities could potentially get from your phone if you are detained, arrested or if they confiscate your device. The other is monitoring all identifying and revealing information you produce when you attend a protest, which can include wireless interception of text messages and more, and tracking tools like license plate scanners And facial recognition. You need to be mindful of both.
After all, even before Good’s murder, the police had already demonstrated their willingness to arrest and attack entirely peaceful protesters as well as journalists observing the demonstrations. With this in mind, you should assume that any digital evidence that proves you were at or near a protest could be used against you.
“The Trump administration is using virtually every lever of government to shut down, suppress, and restrict criticism of the administration and the U.S. government in general, and there have never been more surveillance toys available to U.S. law enforcement and government agencies,” says Evan Greer, deputy director of the activist organization Fight for the Future, who also wrote a helpful article. X thread (then Twitter) featuring digital security tips during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. “That said, there are a number of very simple, concrete things you can do that make it exponentially harder for someone to intercept your communications, for a bad actor to determine your location in real time, or for the government to have access to your private information. »
This story was originally published on May 31, 2020 and updated on January 8, 2026.
Your phone
The most important decision to make before leaving your home for an event is whether to bring your phone or which phone to bring. A smartphone broadcasts all kinds of identifying information; law enforcement can force your cell phone carrier to provide data on which cell towers your phone connects to and when. In the United States, police have also been documented using so-called Stingray devices, or IMSI Catcherswhich pose as cell phone towers and trick all phones in a certain area into connecting to them. This can give police the individual mobile subscriber identification number of every person participating in a protest at any given time, compromising the anonymity of entire crowds.
“The device in your pocket is definitely going to emit information that could be used to identify you,” says Harlo Holmes, director of digital security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit press advocacy group. (Disclosure: WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond serves on the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.)
For this reason, Holmes suggests protesters who wish to maintain anonymity leave their primary phone at home altogether. If you need a phone for coordination or to call friends or a lawyer in an emergency, keep it turned off as much as possible to reduce the chances of it connecting to a rogue cell tower or Wi-Fi hotspot used by law enforcement for surveillance. Work out logistics with your friends in advance so you only have to turn your phone on if something goes wrong. Or to be even more sure that your phone won’t be tracked, keep it in a Faraday bag that blocks all of its radio communications. Open the bag only when necessary. Holmes herself uses and recommends the Dark Mission Faraday Bag.
If you need a mobile device, consider bringing only a secondary phone that you don’t use often, or a burner. Your primary smartphone likely contains the majority of your digital accounts and data, which law enforcement could potentially access if they confiscate your phone. But don’t assume that any backup phone you buy will guarantee you anonymity. If you give a prepaid carrier your credentials, after all, your “burner” phone couldn’t be more anonymous than your main device. “Don’t expect that because you learned it from Duane Reade that you’re automatically a character in The thread“, warns Holmes.
Since properly using a burner phone can be impractical at best, Holmes says it might be better to use a secondary phone that excludes things like social media, email and messaging apps. These apps and accounts may contain highly private information that could be exposed to anyone who enters it. “Choosing a secondary device that limits the amount of personal data you have on you at any time is probably your best protection,” says Holmes.
No matter what phone you use, remember that traditional calls and texts are vulnerable to surveillance. This means you must use end-to-end encryption. Ideally, you and those you communicate with should use messages that disappear and automatically delete themselves after a few hours or days. The encrypted messaging and calling app Signal has perhaps the best and longest track record. Just make sure that you and the people you are communicating with are using the same app, as they are not interoperable.
In addition to protecting your phone’s communications from surveillance, be prepared in case the police seize your device and attempt to unlock it in search of incriminating evidence. The first thing to do is to make sure the content on your smartphone is encrypted. iOS devices have full disk encryption enabled by default if you enable an access lock. For Android phones, go to SettingsSO Security to ensure that Encrypt the disk is activated. (These steps may differ depending on your specific device.)
Regardless of your operating system, always protect your devices with a long and strong passcode rather than a fingerprint or face unlock. As convenient as biometric unlocking methods are, it can be harder to resist an agent forcing your thumb over your phone’s sensor, for example, than refusing to give them a password. So if you use biometrics daily for convenience, turn it off before heading out to protest.
If you insist on using biometric unlocking methods to access your devices faster, keep in mind that some phones have an emergency feature to disable this type of lock. Hold the wake button and either volume button simultaneously on an iPhone, for example, and it will lock on its own and require a passcode to unlock rather than FaceID or TouchID, even if they’re enabled. Most devices also let you take photos or record videos without unlocking them first, a good way to keep your phone locked as much as possible.
Your face
Facial recognition has become one of the most powerful tools for identifying your presence at a protest. Consider wearing a face mask and sunglasses to make it much more difficult to be identified by facial recognition in surveillance footage or photos or videos of the protest on social media. Fight for the Future’s Greer cautions, however, that the accuracy of the most effective facial recognition tools available to law enforcement remains an unknown, and that a simple surgical or KN95 mask may no longer be enough to defeat well-honed face-tracking technology.
If you really want to not be identified, she says, a full face mask can be much safer, or even a Halloween-style mask. “I’ve seen people wearing funny cosplay-style cartoon masks, mascot costumes, or silly costumes,” says Greer, giving as an example Donald Trump And Elon Musk masks she saw protesters wearing Protests against Tesla withdrawal against Musk and the so-called Ministry of Government Effectiveness (DOGE). “It’s a great way to challenge facial recognition and also make the protest more fun.”
You should also think about what clothes you wear before you go. Colorful clothing or clearly visible logos make you more recognizable to law enforcement and easier to track. If you have tattoos that make you identifiable, consider covering them.
Greer warns, however, that it’s increasingly difficult to prevent agencies with the authority and authority to monitor them from learning the simple fact that you attended a protest. For those of you in the most sensitive positions — such as undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation — she suggests considering staying home rather than depending on any concealment technique to disguise your presence at an event.
Another factor to consider is your mode of transportation. Driving a car to attend a Your manifestation, whether yours or someone else’s, may expose you to surveillance by automatic license plate readersor ALPR, which can be used to identify a vehicle’s movements. Also note that in addition to license plates, these ALPRs can detect other words and expressionsincluding those on bumper stickers, signs and even T-shirts.
More generally, everyone participating in a protest needs to think – perhaps more than ever – about their tolerance for risk, from simple identification to the possibility of being arrested or detained. “I think it’s important to say that protesting in the United States now carries higher risks than before: it comes with a real possibility of physical violence and mass arrests,” says Danacea Vo, founder of Cyberlixir, a cybersecurity provider for nonprofits and vulnerable communities. “Even compared to the protests that took place last month, people were able to show up bare-faced and march. Today, things have changed.”
Your online footprint
While most of the privacy and security considerations of attending an in-person event naturally concern your body, the devices you bring with you, and your physical environment, there are a host of other factors to consider online. It is important to understand how posts on social media and other platforms before, during or after a protest can be collected and used by authorities to identify and track you or others. Simply saying on an online platform that you are attending or have attended an event helps spread the information. And if you take photos or videos during a protest, that content could be used to broaden law enforcement’s view of who attended a protest and what they did while there, including strangers who appear in your images or footage.
Authorities can access your online presence by searching for information about you specifically, but can also get there by using bulk data analysis tools like Dataminr that provide law enforcement and other clients with real-time surveillance connecting people to their online activity. Such tools may also surface in past posts, and if you are already angry Violent online comments or allusions to committing crimes, even as a joke, could uncover the activity and use it against you if you are questioned or arrested at a protest. This is a particular concern for people living in the United States on visas or those with insecure immigration status. The US Department of State has explicitly stated that it monitors the activity of immigrants and travelers on social networks.
In addition to written messages, keep in mind that files you upload to social media may contain metadata such as timestamps and location information that could help authorities track crowds and protesters’ movements. Make sure you have permission to photograph or film any other protesters who might be potentially identifiable in your content. Also think carefully before broadcasting live. It’s important to document what’s happening, but it’s difficult to make sure everyone who might appear in your feed feels comfortable being included.
Even if you take photos and videos that you don’t plan to post on social media or share in any other way, remember that this media could fall into the hands of law enforcement if they demand access to your device.
As the Trump administration increases its attempts target and punish left-wing people and organizationsCyberlixir’s Vo argues that people need to weigh the risks of each protest or other situation and judge for themselves the benefits of preserving their privacy versus the need to document the actions of government agents.
“Social media monitoring and online profiling are factors that many people overlook. Those who post images on social media should avoid sharing photos or videos that reveal people’s faces,” she says. “But I also believe that it is essential to document what is happening, especially in high-risk conditions, because when the condition worsens, we need evidence for our legal defense, for public records, for future organization, and also to ensure our physical safety in real time.”
As protests continue – with the real possibility of an even more aggressive response from the Trump administration – prepare for the emergence of forms of digital surveillance that have never been used in the United States before to counter civil disobedience or to retaliate against protesters after the fact. Protesters will need to remain vigilant, and Fight for the Future’s Greer points out that everyone has different potential vulnerabilities and risk tolerance. However, for people in all risk categories, a few thoughtful privacy protections can go a long way toward empowering them to get out on the streets.
“One of the goals of governments expanding and implementing mass surveillance programs is to scare people and make them think twice before speaking out,” says Greer. “I think we should be very careful right now not to fall into that trap.”
