ICE Watch Digital Security

We know that ICE and other law enforcement agencies are using location tracking tools that partially rely on the "advertising ID" that your phone provides. These tools are often using these to repress social movements.

iPhones have this feature disabled by default. On Android, it is on by default and needs to be disabled.

Most normal texts and calls can be observed by your cell phone provider and the government. Telegram is incredibly insecure. (See below for our thoughts on WhatsApp.)

Signal is the best option to keep your messages secure and to keep who you are talking to private.

When to use Signal

Some examples of when you would especially want to use Signal

• Discussing a protest/action that is not public
• Organizing a protest/action that is public, but the organizers want to protect their privacy
• Criticizing the government or other power-holders

What about WhatsApp? (Avoid it if you can, use it if you must)

WhatsApp messages are secured with the encryption method developed by Signal, so the contents of your messages are secure. However, Meta harvests a lot of information about who you are talking to, how often, and what groups you're in. In 2024 alone, they turned over data for 78% of government requests. Your messages are safe, but who you are communicating with is not. It is an option to consider if the community you're working with is unlikely to move to Signal. It is safer than normal texts, Telegram, etc. If you do use WhatsApp, make sure to use the new Strict Account Settings feature and lock down your privacy settings

The best upgrade everyone can make to their use of Signal is to make sure that disappearing messages are enabled by default. Most activists we talk to haven't enabled this by default. (And most people forget to enable it manually for each new thread.)

This keeps you safe and other people safe. We don't know who's phone will be seized by law enforcement. Even if we believe we're talking about perfectly legal things, the government can find ways to twist our words to attempt to make a case against us for our dissent

There are two things to track related to disappearing messages:

1. First, change your default so any thread you make has this feature enabled.
2. Second, make sure it is enabled for threads that other people start: if someone else starts the thread, it may not have disappearing messages enabled. You may need to enable it.

Choosing your disappearing message time: How long you set your disappearing times depends on the sensitivity of your messages. A question you might ask yourself is "if someone's device was confiscated or hacked, how important is it that these messages are not accessible?"

• For chatting about low-risk things with friends, you might choose 4 weeks.
• For standard political organizing, you might choose 1 week.
• For a higer-risk actions, you might set it to 1 day or 1 hour or 5 minutes, so the messages are gone before the action starts.

The steps below help protect you if your device is confiscated by the cops, or an adversary (cop or right-wing) in a Signal group is trying to uncover your identity.

The list below captures the most important steps. For more detailed instructions and advanced steps, read our full Signal Security Checklist →

These apps might genuinely need location while in use:

• Navigation (Apple Maps, Magic Earth, CoMaps)
• Ride-sharing (but only while actively using)

Some apps might need temporary permission:

• Food delivery apps only need location when you're actually ordering

Apps that definitely do NOT need location access:

• Photo apps
• Social media apps
• Games
• Most shopping apps
• Banking apps
• News apps
• Most productivity apps

Remember: Every app with location access is a potential privacy leak. When in doubt, disable location and only re-enable if you find you actually need it.

Every time a new operating system update comes out, it is fixing security holes. Each update you haven't installed represents a longer list of ways the cops can hack into your device. Think of it as as a big building with more and more doors left unlocked.

If your operating system is not up-to-date, many of the other recommendations in this guide will not protect your data.

Start with your phone. If you're doing something higher risk, make sure to update all your devices.

How long does it take to crack a passcode?

Note: These times only apply to phones. Computers can be cracked much more quickly, and need much stronger passwords.

Sources: The estimates in the table above assume real-world observed attempts/second from police forensic hacking tools. If you need more security, use a 10-digit passcode, which will protect you even under the highest-possible cracking scenarios. See the sources linked in the passcode FAQ here.

Cops can try to force you to unlock your phone with your face/fingerprint (though this is supposed to require a warrant, but that doesn't mean that always happens).

You have stronger legal standing with a passcode than with biometric unlock.

Caveat: Face/fingerprint unlock can make it easier to use a strong passcode without typing it every time. If you feel you have to choose between a long passcode and disabling biometrics, we recommend a longer passcode.

If your phone is confiscated while you are filming or photographing, the cops can get access to everything.

Your phone lets you take photos without unlocking first, so your data stays more secure.

Videos of interactions with law enforcement are very important in our work. And they can also create legal risk for activists or other individuals.

Before posting, consult with your activist network and/or movement-aligned lawyers.

If you share sensitive videos/photos with trusted activists or lawyers, you want to do it using secure channels. Cloud providers like Apple/Google could turn over your data to the police with a court order.

Most of the digital security advice on this page relates to your phone being confiscated or surveilled.

If you can manage without your phone and are able to get a "regular" camera, that can provide even more protection.

If you have your phone entirely powered down, it is much more protected from surveillance or "phone hacking" tools that cops use.

By default, photos and videos from your phone include hidden data ("metadata") that reveals your exact GPS location, timestamp, and phone model.

If we post the photo online, this metadata can be used to track and identify you by law enforcement or right-wing adversaries.

ICE watch and rapid response work comes with a higher risk of arrest. The best way to keep not just yourself, but your community safe is to have as little data as possible on the phone that gets confiscated. And the easiest way to accomplish that is to only have a secondary phone with you when doing higher-risk work.

Getting an extra phone may not be accessible to everyone, but we encourage you to ask your network for support—people often have old phones sitting around that still work.

Don't let not having a secondary phone stop you from doing this work.

What should be on a secondary phone:

• Phone numbers for anyone you may need to be in contact with (friend, family, kids, etc.)
• Signal threads for that day's work only (leave all other Signal threads, delete all DMs)
• Private map app like Magic Earth
• Photos/videos documenting ICE (delete anything not from today after you've saved it somewhere safe)
• ... And next to nothing else!

Option 1: The more-anonymous approach

Option 2: The easier approach

Your location history reveals a lot about your interests, friends, and political activity. It can also be used against you in court.

Your phone is always revealing your approximate location to your cell provider because it knows what cell tower you are connected to. But any app you give your exact GPS location to has much more detail.

You can protect yourself by using a mapping app that is more privacy-preserving.

Apple Maps (iPhone only) offers privacy protections that are stronger than you might expect and is much more private than Google. However, as a big tech company, it's best for everyday use rather than sensitive organizing. We recommend it because it provides live traffic and public transportation features that privacy-focused alternatives lack.

Magic Earth (iPhone or Android; free) offers strong privacy. It is much easier to use than our other cross-platform suggestion (CoMaps). Some features are only available in the paid version, though.

CoMaps (iPhone or Android; free) is less user-friendly than Magic Earth or Apple Maps, but has the strongest privacy promises. You can operate it entirely offline, which is especially helpful for activists doing sensitive work. That said, it doesn't have live traffic data or public transit routes, which makes it hard to use as your main navigation app.

Spyware is an advanced type of attack, exploiting sophisticated vulnerabilities on our devices. In response, Apple and Google have introduced an advanced security mode that offers enhanced protection against spyware.

On iPhones, it's called Lockdown Mode and on Android, it's called Advanced Protection Program. (You can also enable Advanced Protection Program on just your Google Account even if you don't have an Android phone.)

We have no reports of anyone getting infected with spyware who had Apple's Lockdown Mode enabled. Android's Advanced Protection is more recent and its effectiveness has yet to be tested.

"People search" sites are a type of "data broker." They collect information from public and private records to form a "profile" for basically everyone. If you've ever had a phone number, used a credit card, or voted, you're probably on one of these sites.

Try it out: Search this site for your name or phone number (we use this one as the example because it returns results immediately without making you sign up). Most people are surprised how much information is readily available. Other major sites in this category include Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, and a growing number of AI-powered lookup tools.

Why pay for automatic removal services: You can do this "opt out" process manually, but it takes an incredible amount of time, and you have to re-do it every few months when the data broker sites change. It's ridiculous that we have to pay to protect our privacy, but it saves a lot of time for us to focus on our organizing.

Which automatic removal tool should I use?

• EasyOptOuts (recommended) - $20/year - It is among the most effective and the cheapest.
• Optery Ultimate - $250/year - Slightly more effective if you can afford the additional investment. They can take a copy of your ID (with ID number removed) and opt you out from sites that require an ID.
• What about DeleteMe? - It's the most well-known option, but it was only 27% effective at removing profiles compared to EasyOptOuts (65%) and Optery Ultimate (68%). (Source).

EasyOptOuts Privacy: Some people are concerned about entering all their information into a site like this. While no site is immune to data breaches, we trust this site based on their history and reputation. And the information is necessary to do removals.

Alternate tool: Kanary is a free app that searches Google for your personal info and walks you through manually removing it. It is still very time intensive and people are likely to abandon it before they finish all the removals.

ICE is using Clearview AI to target protesters and observers. Many law enforcement agencies also use this platform to do warrantless surveillance.

You can protect yourself by opting out of Clearview AI. (FYI - ICE is investing in other facial recognition tools that you can't opt-out of.)

Anytime you connect to the internet (phone or computer), your internet provider is revealing your approximate location to every site/app you use.

We know that law enforcement agencies are using tools to track your location using data gathered from apps you have and ads you see. Using a VPN with ad-blocking features enabled makes it much harder for them to track you. Also, a vetted VPN won't track your browsing; police can get a subpoena for your internet traffic that gets tracked by your internet provider.

A VPN helps mask your location and makes you slightly harder to identify.

A VPN with ad-blocking enabled on your phone can help prevent warrantless location tracking (through ad networks).

Check out our dedicated VPN page for more info on when a VPN is actually useful and when it is not.

Options: These are the VPNs we recommend for most activists (see our full list of vetted VPNs):

• IVPN (top recommendation): Easy to use and renews automatically.
• Proton VPN has a solid free plan, but it is only for 1 device. To get ad-blocking, you need a paid plan. (If you use Proton, see our guide to using Proton safely.)

Tech companies (like Google) often receive government demands to turn over all the account data for an activist. This often includes a "gag order" which means the company can't tell the user until months or years later.

Encrypted cloud tools like Proton Mail, Drive, Docs, and Sheets ensure the company doesn't hold readable copies of your data to hand over. If the government wants it, they'd need to demand it from you—giving you notice and the opportunity to challenge it with legal support.

CryptPad is another popular encrypted doc option, but it is very difficult to use. If it has features you need, it accomplishes the same result.

You can protect yourself by opting out of "reverse photo search" sites. This makes it harder for someone to use your profile picture online to find out your legal name, which can lead to them finding you on the people search sites mentioned above.

Apple, Google, and other services offer additional security features to protect against targeted attacks on your accounts and data. These protect your online accounts with each company, not your device itself.

Apple's Advanced Data Protection enables end-to-end encryption for most of your content.

Even though your phone number isn't visible on Signal by default, people can still type in your phone number and find you. If you're at risk of harassment, you may want to only share your Signal username with folks instead.

A 50-person chat means 50 phones that could be seized, lost, or breached—any one of them exposes the whole conversation. While we sometimes need big Signal groups, don't run all your organizing through one big group chat. When coordinating something specific—an action, a project, a sensitive decision—spin up a small group with only the people who need to be there, and set messages to disappear quickly.

If your phone is confiscated by law enforcement, one of the biggest risks is exposing your entire network. Even if people aren't using their real name on their Signal account, there is still a unique ID behind every Signal username. And the cops can use this to correlate someone's identity across many seized devices.

You need to both leave AND delete the group:

• If you only leave the group, old messages stay on your phone as well as the history of who was in the group.
• If you only delete the group, new messages will still come through and the thread re-appears.

Security hygiene tips:

• Set a recurring reminder to clean up your Signal thread every 3 months.
• Make sure you take note of which groups you are leaving and who you can ask to re-add you after the action.

Note: If you find this process very annoying and cumbersome (because it is!), that's another good reason to use a secondary phone for actions. That phone would only ever be in the one or two groups needed to pull off the action that day.

The government uses social media tracking tools to surveil activists without a warrant. Right-wing adversaries use "people search" sites and social media to attempt to scare us into not organizing.

You can scrub your personal information to make it harder to be a target for these attacks.

When your phone is fully powered off, it's more secure against data extraction by the cops. The data is encrypted until after you enter your passcode for the first time.

Therefore, the number one thing you can do to protect your data is turn your phone off as soon as you think your risk of arrest is going up.

Trade-offs: We recognize there are trade-offs in turning off your phone. Sometimes it is more important to film the police or coordinate with our allies. Think through what is the priority for you. If you need to film, consider bringing a secondary phone so you have less sensitive data on it.

As dissent is becoming increasingly criminalized, it is useful for us to prepare for the possibility of arrest or feeling threatened at home by adversaries.