If your teenager is going to a protest: how to prepare their phone

A plan rather than a ban or a blessing, and the practical steps that matter if something goes wrong.

School and university protests across Europe this autumn have included many under-18s. This page does not say whether a young person should go. It is for parents and guardians who have already decided to stay involved and want the practical side right: a plan, a prepared phone, and honest information about what the app does and does not do.

Why this matters now

Time reports that, in France, 87% of those detained during the school protests were minors, citing the Justice Ministry. In Turin on 16 October, three minors were arrested for aggravated resistance to a public official, according to the local police headquarters reported by ANSA. We take no side on the demands or on the violence reported by either side. The point is that young people are among those at risk, and preparation helps.

Talk first

• Where exactly are they going, and with whom?
• Agree a meeting point and a check-in time, and what to do if they are separated from the group.
• Agree the rule: stay at the edge of the crowd, know two exits, and leave when told to by police.
• Agree what happens if they are detained: who they call, and that they ask for a lawyer.

Prepare the phone

1. A passcode of at least six digits instead of Face ID or a fingerprint.
2. Fully charged, with a power bank. A dead phone helps nobody.
3. A lawyer's or legal-support number written on their arm in marker, because a number stored in the phone is unreachable if the phone is taken.
4. Your number and the meeting point written down as well.
5. Optional: location sharing with you using your phone platform's own feature, if they agree.

If they want to film

Many young people will film. The basics are the same as for adults: stay at a reasonable distance, never get in the way of police, keep the phone visible. Our country guides cover the law in five countries. Ask them to blur the faces of other young people before posting anything online, and to keep the original untouched.

What Witness does, and a privacy point to agree on

Witness Camera (App Store name: Witness: Camera Beyond Reach) is free and works on iPhone and Android. It records with the screen black, uploads every 15 seconds to a cloud account the user owns, and hashes and time-stamps each recording. It is rated 4+ on the App Store and Everyone on Google Play. There is no Witness server, so the developer cannot see the footage.

Its emergency-contact feature shares each recording with a person the user names. If that is you, agree it with your teenager first. Receiving live footage of a protest is a significant privacy matter for them, and a teenager who feels watched may simply not use the tool.

What parents cannot do from a distance

No app protects someone physically or decides what a court accepts. If your child is detained, contact a lawyer or a legal-support organisation immediately. The rules on detaining minors differ by country and we have not verified them. This page is not legal advice.

Questions

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
• Protest phone checklist: 10 steps before you film the police
• Police told you to delete your video or hand over your phone at a protest

Last updated 21 October 2026. Written on 21 October 2026. The situation and the law change. This is not legal advice.