Back it up! Lock it! Delete it! a.k.a. Someone took my mobile: Border crossings, arrests, seizure, theft [tactical activity]

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In this activity, we plan and prepare for situations where participants and their phones may be at physical risk. Scenarios may include:

This activity has 4 stages with optional hands-on activities with installing and preparing devices. The stages include:

Optionally, follow this activity with hands-on exercises to practice the strategies and tactics.

Learning objectives this activity responds to

Who is this activity for?

This activity is for participants with varied levels of experience in using mobile phones to practice tactical safety with a focus on care and mobile phones.

Time required

This activity will require about 80 minutes.

Resources needed for this activity

Mechanics

This exercise is designed to support activists who are planning to engage in risky situations with their mobile phones. In the end, they will have a map of tools and tactics they can use.

Current practices in caring for ourselves – 20 minutes

Care note: This activity is a tactical activity to plan and prepare for using mobile phones in situations where people and their devices are at risk. Begin by acknowledging that to prepare for a risky situation, we need to consider first how we care for ourselves before, during and after.

Begin with grounding and discussion about how people care for themselves in high risk situations.

Ask each individual to begin by working on their own. Hand out paper and ask them to consider these questions and to write their answers:

Ask participants to divide their paper in 3 sections: before, during and after. Their paper will look something like this:

Participants' Paper Example
BEFORE
DURING
AFTER












As a full group, invite participants to share their practices. Write these on a white board or piece of paper visible to the full group. Leave this up in a place that is visible. Ask people to share practices they do as individuals and with others.

Participants will continue to use this simple method for organizing practices in the next part of the workshop.

Planning and preparing our devices - 45 minutes

If you are working with participants to prepare for a specific event, it is best to work with the actual event. The following are scenarios that you might use in case workshop participants are not preparing for a specific event or your group needs more grounding for any reason. These are examples and we invite you to take these and make them your own.

Scenario 1: Safety when participating in protests

You are about to attend a mass protest. You need to be able to keep the data in your phone safe and to keep yourself from being tracked in the protest, but also be able to use your phone to contact allies for emergency purposes. You are also thinking of using your phone to document the protest and any possible human rights violations that will happen there.

Scenario 2: Safety at (unsafe) border crossings

You are in transit, and are about to cross a border into an unsafe location. You want to be able to use your phone to keep contact with your allies, but not as a personal tracking device. Ask people what their strategies are when they know someone else may have access to their phone. Examples of situations might include border crossings, flight boarding, going to a street protest.

Scenario 3: Safety when there is threat of arrest or seizure

You have heard from a reliable contact that you are being targeted by the state for arrest and seizure of devices because of your activism.

Scenario 4: Safety when there is risk of theft and harassment

You are concerned that someone may steal your phone and use the content to harass you.

Ask participants to document their discussions on paper and to divide their paper in 3 sections: before, during and after. Their paper will look something like this:

Participants' Paper Example
BEFORE
DURING
AFTER












In small groups, facilitate participants to work through the following sets of questions.

How are people impacted: In this scenario/the event or experience you are preparing for, what are the risks? Who is impacted by this? Consider yourself, people who are on your phone in some way, your organizing/the issue you are working on (if applicable).

You can use the following questions as guiding questions for groups to consider how to reduce the impacts on people from a tactical perspective.

Before: Think about what you will do to prepare your mobile phone for this scenario.

During: Think about how you will use your phone during the scenario.

After: Think about what you will do after the scenario.

Give the groups a minimum of 30 minutes to a maximum of 45 minutes to come up with plans, strategies and tactics.

At the end of the group discussion, ask the groups to talk about their plans, strategies and tactics.

Use the results of the report-back to plan your hands-on for mobile safety.

Input (optional) - 15 minutes

Notes for trainer/facilitator Depending on your style and your participants, you may want to deepen and add inputs as groups debrief or as a planned input section. The following are notes that we believe may be useful as you plan this.

Before

During

After your phone has been out of your control

Additional resources


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Revision #4
Created 16 April 2023 04:15:34 by Kira
Updated 27 June 2023 13:20:33 by Kira