Journalists Must Use Secure Phones
In a world of high-profile hacks and leaks, digital privacy is on everyone’s mind. Journalists must be extra cautious about the security of their phones. Powerful entities around the world target journalists, spying on them through their phones in an attempt to intimidate them and suppress the news.
Smartphones are fantastic tools for connecting and multitasking, but they can also be a treasure trove for hackers looking to access sensitive information. Journalists need to secure their sources and story to protect themselves and others from prying eyes.
Journalists tell stories that have a profound effect on public perception. They can make powerful enemies by revealing information others want to hide. This can include news about entertainment, government, industry, or law enforcement.
Having a functional phone and safeguarding its contents is essential for a journalist. Here are the security features a phone should have to protect your privacy.
Military-Grade Encryption
Your phone’s encryption needs to be “end-to-end,” both in transit and at rest. Phones should have “military-grade” (AES-256) encryption, the strongest available.
As a journalist, you can ensure your sources remain private and confidently embargo news stories with a properly encrypted cell phone. While using the strongest end-to-end encryption may be the primary instrument in your digital privacy toolkit, journalists also need phones with features to eliminate vulnerabilities from hacking and surveillance.
Secondary Security Features
Suppose you want to share messages or pictures briefly but don’t want to make sensitive material available any longer than necessary. In that case, you can protect yourself and the recipient with the correct phone. This is why journalists need phones with a self-destruct feature.
This lets you adjust the timeframe, from one to 99 minutes, before the item is deleted, even if the recipient favorites the message or image. Once set to self-destruct, the recipient cannot share the content, adding an extra layer of protection.
With or without a Wi-Fi connection, the self-destruct action will be completed, giving journalists granular control over messages and images they send.
What if your phone is stolen or lost? You need a tamper-proof feature that automatically wipes the phone of all contents if someone enters the wrong password too many times.
As a journalist, you could be forced to give your phone to someone who demands access to it. Having a phone that lets, you set an optional duress password in advance can further protect yourself and your story. This will unlock the phone while simultaneously wiping its contents.
Encrypted Cameras and Photos
If a picture is worth a thousand words, journalists need to protect these assets. The right image makes an immediate impact on viewers, and investigative journalists need to save these sensitive pictures on their phones to keep them from prying eyes.
The most secure phones have custom cameras to let you encrypt pictures. Plus, they don’t store cached image data, eliminating any security vulnerability with deleted photos. They also use excellent image quality while keeping the file size small for sharing.
Ultimately, journalists need all the functionality of a modern phone camera without any privacy risks. With the market’s most secure phones, you can get it all.
Journalists Use Secure Phones: Journalists use secure phones: easy to use
Journalists work under tight deadlines and don’t want to be burdened by a complicated phone that slows down turnaround time. News moves quickly online, and, as the saying goes, bad news travels fast. You need a secure device that lets you keep pace.
The last thing a journalist wants is a technology that doesn’t let them work in their native language. Thankfully, you can choose to do so with a phone that can be configured to one of the world’s most popular languages, including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish, among others. The best platforms expand their language offerings for the global marketplace.
Many free apps may appear to offer you security, but you will need to accept their terms of use which can put your privacy at risk. Read the fine print and know what you agree to. Journalism can be a potentially dangerous industry for reporters who hold the powerful to account. Keep your sources and yourself safe by choosing a phone with all the above features.
