When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in south Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, the immediate aftermath unfolded in a way that has become disturbingly routine in the modern era of citizen journalism. Cellphone footage of the incident rapidly circulated online, and firsthand eyewitness accounts began to challenge the official narrative provided by authorities, prompting video analysts to meticulously dissect the clip frame by frame. They sought to answer the fundamental question of whether she posed the imminent threat that federal officials claimed she did. What has fundamentally shifted since Minneapolis first became a global focal point for bystander video following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 is the profound extent to which camera systems, particularly those integrated into smartphones, are now inextricably linked with a much broader and more sophisticated surveillance ecosystem. The hard truth for anyone filming law enforcement today is that the very technologies that can hold the state accountable also possess the power to make ordinary individuals far more visible and vulnerable to that same state. The act of recording is often considered protected speech, but the process of recording, and especially sharing that recording, generates a wealth of data that can be systematically searched, linked, purchased, and repurposed in ways the original recorder never intended.
1. The Perils of Targeting the Watchers
The power of documentation cannot be overstated; it can often be the crucial element that distinguishes an official, state-sanctioned narrative from an evidence-based public record that reflects the truth of an event. Courts throughout much of the United States have consistently recognized a First Amendment right to record police officers in public spaces while they are performing their official duties, though this right is subject to what are termed “reasonable” restrictions. For instance, a citizen cannot physically interfere with police operations while filming. However, the application of this right is notably uneven across different jurisdictions and remains highly vulnerable in practice, particularly in situations where police officers claim that an individual is interfering with their duties or when state laws impose mandatory distances that people must maintain from law enforcement actions. These practices, while ostensibly for safety, effectively create a chilling effect on the act of filming. Beyond the legal landscape, personal safety is a paramount consideration for anyone choosing to document law enforcement. In the days following Good’s killing, Minneapolis witnessed the emergence of other viral clips that documented ongoing immigration enforcement actions and subsequent protests, along with agents’ forceful engagements with individuals near those scenes, including professional photographers and journalists.
The full extent of how many individuals have been specifically targeted by federal agents for the act of recording is difficult to ascertain with precision, as many incidents may go unreported or unverified. However, available data points to a concerning trend. In late 2025 in Illinois, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, an initiative operated by the advocacy group Freedom of the Press Foundation, documented several alarming incidents. In these cases, journalists who were covering protests at ICE facilities reported being shot with crowd-control munitions or being physically tackled and arrested while they were actively filming. These events serve as a stark reminder that the act of documentation is not without significant risk. There is an additional layer of safety that extends beyond the immediate physical threat that must now be taken into account: the increased risk of comprehensive digital exposure. The established legal right to record an interaction does not, and cannot, prevent the recording itself from becoming a piece of data that can be collected, analyzed, and used by others, including the very agencies being documented. This transforms a tool of accountability into a potential source of personal vulnerability for the person holding the camera.
2. The Threefold Nature of Digital Exposure
In practical terms, the use of smartphones to document law enforcement generates at least three distinct categories of digital exposure that individuals must consider. The first and perhaps most widely understood is the risk of identification, which is increasingly amplified through the deployment of facial recognition technology. When a person posts footage online, they may inadvertently be sharing a trove of identifiable information, including faces, distinctive tattoos, voices, vehicle license plates, school logos on clothing, or even a unique piece of apparel like a jacket. This data can enable law enforcement agencies to identify people present in the recordings through sophisticated investigative tools. Simultaneously, it allows online crowds to identify and potentially dox or harass these same individuals, creating a two-pronged threat. This risk is magnified when government agencies deploy facial recognition systems directly in the field. For example, ICE is currently utilizing a facial recognition application known as Mobile Fortify, which allows agents to perform real-time identification. Furthermore, the accuracy of facial recognition is not neutral; testing by the National Institute of Standards and Technology has documented that the technology does not perform equally across different demographic groups, meaning the risk of misidentification is not distributed evenly. Studies have consistently shown lower recognition accuracy for individuals with darker skin tones, placing certain communities at a disproportionately higher risk.
The second major category of risk involves the revealing of a person’s location, a threat that goes far beyond the visible content of a video. Digital footage is more than just a sequence of images; the photo and video files themselves often contain embedded metadata, such as precise timestamps and geographic coordinates. Moreover, the platforms used to share this content maintain their own additional logs of user activity. Even if a person never posts their recording, their smartphone is still constantly emitting a steady stream of location signals to cell towers and Wi-Fi networks. This becomes critically important because government agencies can obtain this location data through a variety of channels, each with different levels of legal oversight. Agencies can request location or other user data from technology companies through legal instruments like warrants or court orders, including controversial geofence warrants that compel companies to turn over data about every device that was present in a specific geographic area during a set time window. Agencies can also circumvent the legal process entirely by simply purchasing location data from commercial data brokers. The Federal Trade Commission has recently penalized firms for the unlawful sale of such sensitive location information, highlighting the pervasive nature of this unregulated market.
The third type of potential exposure is the risk associated with having a phone physically seized by law enforcement. If police confiscate a device, whether temporarily during an arrest or permanently as evidence in an investigation, the individual’s digital exposure is not limited to the specific video they recorded. A seized phone can potentially grant authorities access to a vast repository of personal information, including the owner’s entire contact list, complete message histories from various applications, the full photo and video roll, detailed location history logs, and access to any cloud accounts that are synced to the device. Recognizing this significant vulnerability, civil liberties groups that publish safety guidance for protesters consistently recommend a few key precautions. They advise disabling biometric unlocking features like face and fingerprint scanners and instead relying on a strong, alphanumeric passcode. This is because, in some legal contexts, law enforcement officials can more easily compel an individual to use their biometrics (such as forcing a thumb onto a sensor) than they can compel that person to reveal a memorized secret like a passcode. This simple change in security settings can create a crucial barrier between an individual’s private data and a potential investigation, protecting a much wider scope of personal information than just the recording itself.
3. A Framework for Safer Digital Witnessing
While this information does not constitute legal advice and no activity is entirely without risk, individuals who wish to balance the accountability benefits of filming with a reduction in their digital exposure can take several concrete steps to address these risks. Before heading to a location where recording might be necessary, it is crucial to decide what the primary objective is. Is the goal to preserve evidence as quickly and securely as possible, or is it to minimize personal traceability at all costs? These two goals can sometimes be in conflict. It is wise to harden the device’s lock screen with a long, complex passcode, disable face and fingerprint ID, turn off message previews that can be read from the lock screen, and reduce the risk of what is being carried. This can be done by logging out of sensitive accounts, such as personal email or banking apps, and removing any unnecessary applications that are not essential for the immediate task. For those with the resources, an even safer option is to consider leaving a primary, personal phone at home and instead bringing a secondary, less-data-rich device if that is a realistic option. This “burner” phone approach drastically reduces the amount of personal data that could be compromised if the device is seized or tracked.
During the act of filming, a proactive strategy can significantly mitigate potential risks as they unfold in real time. It is important to have a pre-determined plan for how footage will be secured, especially if there is a concern that it might be deleted by authorities. One option is to send the file immediately to a trusted person through a secure, end-to-end encrypted application. Another is to keep the footage stored offline on the device until in a safe location, avoiding cloud backups that could be accessed remotely. Whenever possible, it is advisable to keep the phone locked by using the camera-from-lock-screen feature, which allows for recording without fully unlocking the device and exposing all of its contents. If the risk of identification for those being filmed is high, it is best to avoid livestreaming, as live posts can expose the filmer’s location in real time and make it easier to identify everyone present. The focus of the recording should be on documenting context rather than creating a sensational, viral clip. This means capturing wide shots to establish the scene, recording key actions and official responses, and capturing clear markers of the time and place. It is also critical to limit close-ups of bystanders to protect their identities. One must always assume that any face captured on camera is searchable, and if it is not possible to protect people in the moment, it may be wiser to wait to share the footage until it can be safely edited.
After the event has concluded and the filmer is in a secure location, several post-recording steps are essential for responsible distribution. The first step should always be to back up the footage securely to a private, offline storage medium. Before any footage is posted online, it must be edited to enhance privacy. This involves blurring the faces of bystanders, distinctive tattoos, and vehicle license plates. It is also crucial to remove the metadata embedded in the file, which can contain location and time information. The privacy-edited copy, not the raw file, should be the version that is shared publicly. It is also important to think strategically about the method of distribution. Sometimes, the safest and most effective approach is not to post the footage directly to social media but to provide it to trusted intermediaries like journalists, lawyers, or established civil rights organizations. These groups have the resources to authenticate the footage and can distribute it in a way that maximizes its impact without exposing everyone involved to the risks of mass identification. Finally, it is vital to remember the “second audience” that exists beyond law enforcement, an audience that includes employers, online trolls, and commercial data brokers, all of whom might use the publicly available footage for their own purposes.
4. Navigating a Surveillance-Saturated Reality
The act of recording law enforcement in public spaces remained a vital democratic check on power, especially in moments when official narratives and observable reality were in direct conflict, as they had been in Minneapolis since January 7, 2026. The camera that resided in nearly every pocket had become an indispensable tool for accountability and a counterweight to state-controlled information. However, it was also clear that this same device had become an integrated component of a rapidly maturing surveillance ecosystem. This system had forged powerful links between video evidence, facial recognition databases, and pervasive location data in ways that most people had never explicitly consented to and often did not fully recognize. In 2026, the act of filming still mattered immensely. The challenge that defined this era became ensuring that the fundamental act of witnessing did not quietly, and irrevocably, become a new and more insidious form of personal exposure.
