Witness CameraProtest phone checklist: 10 steps before you film the police
What to do in the hour before you leave, in the order that matters.
Most footage of protests is lost for boring reasons: a dead battery, a locked-out phone, uploads that never started, a phone taken before anything was saved. This checklist is the preparation that prevents those. It applies to school and university protests across Europe and to any other demonstration.
Short answer. Before a protest: set a six-digit passcode instead of Face ID, charge to 100% and carry a power bank, connect cloud storage and test-record for 30 seconds, name an emergency contact, write a lawyer's number on your arm, and know two exits. Witness Camera is a free iPhone and Android app that records with the screen black and uploads every 15 seconds, so footage already sent survives a seized phone.
The ten steps
- Use a passcode, not biometrics. Set a passcode of at least six digits instead of Face ID or a fingerprint. On iPhone, holding the side button and a volume button together forces the passcode screen.
- Charge to 100% and bring a power bank. Filming on a congested network with continuous upload is the worst case for a battery, and demonstrations run long.
- Connect your own storage. In Witness, connect Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud or WebDAV. Footage uploads to an account you own. There is no Witness server and no account with the developer.
- Test it for 30 seconds. Record half a minute, stop, and check that the file appears in your storage. Do this the day before, not at the protest.
- Name an emergency contact. Each recording is shared with the contact you name as it is made, so someone else has your material if you are detained.
- Set up instant start. iPhone: Action Button (iPhone 15 Pro and newer), Lock Screen widget or a Siri phrase. Android: Quick Settings tile, home-screen widget or an assistant shortcut.
- Write a lawyer's number on your arm. In marker, on skin. A number stored in the phone is unreachable if the phone is taken. Use a lawyer or legal-support group you trust.
- Tell the people you go with. If you are there to film, say so, so nobody expects you to be somewhere else when it matters.
- Plan two exits and stay at the edge. The edge of a crowd shows the line, the crowd and the space between them. The middle gives you no exit and no context.
- Decide now what you will publish. Keep the original untouched. Before posting anything online, blur the faces of minors and bystanders. Many protesters are under 18.
If you are in Germany, decide about sound first
Witness always records sound and has no setting to turn the microphone off. German law treats recording the non-publicly spoken word as an offence (section 201 of the Strafgesetzbuch), and whether an officer's announcement at a public operation counts is disputed. Our German legal page explains it. If you want to work without sound, Witness is currently the wrong tool.
What the checklist cannot do
It will not make recording lawful where it is not, protect you physically, or guarantee that a court or newsroom accepts your footage. The law differs by country: see Filming the police at student protests across Europe. This is not legal advice.
Questions
What should I do with my phone before a protest?
Set a six-digit passcode instead of biometrics, charge it fully and carry a power bank, connect cloud storage and test-record for 30 seconds, name an emergency contact, and write a lawyer's number on your arm.
Will uploads work in a crowd?
Mobile networks often saturate at large demonstrations. Witness keeps each piece on the phone until your storage confirms it, and uploads when a connection is available, rather than failing.
What if my phone is taken?
Pieces that had already uploaded are safe in your own cloud storage. The piece being recorded and any pieces still queued are on the phone, so the practical loss is whatever had not finished sending.
Do I need a special app to film at a protest?
No. Any camera app works for filming. Witness adds black-screen recording, uploads every 15 seconds to storage you own, SHA-256 hashing and an independent time-stamp. It is free on iPhone and Android.
Set up Witness before the next day of action
The app is free. Set it up and test it before you need it.
More in this series
- Filming the police at student protests across Europe
- Police told you to delete your video or hand over your phone at a protest
- If your teenager is going to a protest: how to prepare their phone
Last updated 21 October 2026. Written on 21 October 2026. The situation and the law change. This is not legal advice.