Wear a mask, then cover your face with Signal
Dr. Martin Shelton
June 28, 2023
Photo by Tim Dennell. CC BY-NC 2.0
Following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, people are marching to demand justice and reform to counter structural racism around the world. However, even protected First Amendment activity still met with unwanted surveillance from police monitoring social media, as well as the potential for workplace and other forms of retaliation. Protecting the identities of those at protests is one way to help minimize risk. At the height of recent protests, Signal, the secure messaging app, has introduced updates to help blur faces of those captured in photos.
Ordinarily phone calls and messages are vulnerable to law enforcement interception, and are also readily available to phone companies. Many protesters have moved to Signal to take advantage of end-to-end encryption, meaning that no one can eavesdrop on your messages — not even the team at Signal.
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Let’s talk about how to cover those faces. (For those just getting started we wrote you a Signal guide for beginners!)
When you first open a conversation in Signal, you will see a camera icon at the bottom of the screen. From here, you can take photos that will remain within Signal, and won’t leave the app unless you choose to save them to your device’s camera roll.
After opening a conversation, you’ll see this camera icon at the bottom of the screen.
From here, snap a photo.
Click the pen icon at the bottom of the screen.
You should see a checkered icon. From here, you can draw a blur anywhere in the photo. Be mindful to blur any identifying details in photos, such as birthmarks, tattoos, or other details that could be used to identify someone.
You can also automatically blur all faces in the photo by toggling “blur faces” at the bottom of the screen.
Covering your face is just one tactic to minimize risk for those in your photos. There are still multiple ways to unintentionally leak information.
Snap safely!