Report to ILS Steering Committee: From Digital Security Sub-Group (12/16/2025)
The Working Group on “Digital Security” recommends that people begin to take sensible precautions with their digital use. This includes computers, tablets and cell phones. Specifically, we suggest you review the “Security Essentials” found on the website “Digital Security Checklists for Activists.” This website has a series of “Checklists” for activists. To begin we recommend an initial checklist, “Security Essentials.” These checklists are quite thorough and can be a bit daunting. However, in our current environment, it is important to begin implementing many of these suggestions.
Go to Security Essentials: https://activistchecklist.org/essentials/
Quoted from “Security Essentials: “Every click, message, and location ping creates a digital trail that can be used against activists and organizers. Law enforcement regularly demands data from tech companies to identify and surveil people working for social change.
This guide helps you minimize your digital trail. These steps won’t make you invisible, but they’ll make it substantially harder for authorities to:
- Track your location and movement patterns
- Monitor your communications and political discussions
- Map your relationships and networks
- Build profiles of your activities and associations”
Baseline security: For each of the following topics found on “Security Essentials,” you can “click” on the appropriate link for more specific advice.
- Use Signal for texts and calls, especially your activism and political conversations
- Use privacy-focused browser for everyday browsing (instead of Chrome)
- Install the latest software updates for your laptop, phone, and apps
- Ditch Google Search and use a search engine like Brave Search instead
- Use a privacy-focused map/navigation app (Apple Maps or Magic Earth)
- Turn off location tracking for most apps
- Remove your private information from data broker websites
- Use a password manager with strong passwords
- Enable two-factor authentication
- Set your phone passcode to 8 to 10 random digits
- Don’t use email for secure communications
On the home page, https://activistchecklist.org/, you can find even more detailed lists and suggestions. However, we suggest you start “slowly” to familiarize yourself with steps you can take to enhance your digital security. Many of the suggestions are straightforward and do not require much effort and time. However, as you proceed through the list, you will find many important ideas to consider and implement.
We highly recommend that everyone begin to take basic steps to enhance their digital security. If you have questions, please email us at indivisiblelincolnsquare@gmail.com and someone will get back to you.
Also note that National Indivisible has two sites on digital security as well:
“Digital Communications Security“
“Safety, Security, and Digital Preparedness for a Second Trump Administration“
In resistance,
The Digital Security Working Group