this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Before going to a protest, demonstrators or observers should note that their cellphones may subject them to surveillance tactics by law enforcement. If your cellphone is on and unsecured, your location can be tracked and your unencrypted communications, such as SMS, may be intercepted. Additionally, police may retrieve your messages and the content of your phone if they take custody of your phone, or later by warrant or subpoena.

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[–] codenamekino@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To add onto the phone section: (1) Disable any biometric authentication, and (2) turn/keep it off whenever there's a chance that it will be siezed.

  1. While the first amendment protects you from being required to give up your phone's pass code, there's no protection against someone just holding the phone up to your face or fingerprints to unlock it.

  2. While your phone is never totally impenetrable, it is significantly harder to access in its BFU state (before first unlock). Most commercially available cracking tools will only work if the phone is in it's AFU state (after first unlock).

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've seen plenty of videos of cops holding a suspect down and forcing a fingerprint unlock...

[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

And in all likelihood forcing your fingerprint or face unlock is perfectly legally acceptable for them to do. A password or a code is something they'd have to force you to say and ultimately you can choose not to (though they're still fine to just try and hack out a pin/pattern on their own, or use phone-cracking tools or backdoors) but you have no defense whatsoever against your biometrics being used.