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Cops may ask you not to record and even threaten you with arrest for recording. Do not be intimidated; it is your right to record without obstructing.

If you find yourself in a situation where you might be detained and thereby unable to control interactions with your device, on iPhone you can disable TouchID and FaceID by holding one of the volume buttons and the sleep/wake button simultaneously for a few seconds. This will require you to enter your passcode the next time you want to unlock iPhone. Anyone have similar instructions for Android?



> Do not be intimidated; it is your right to record without obstructing.

Be very careful taking this advice. If you weren't already aware, the past week should make it crystal clear that police have absolutely no problem arresting or assaulting you for exercising your rights.


Rights exist insofar as they are enforced. Otherwise what’s the difference between rights and a nice idea?


The ACLU confirms what you say:

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1268588997829410816

"When you are lawfully present in any public space, you have the right to photograph anything in plain view, including federal buildings and the police."

"Police may not confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant, nor may they delete data under any circumstances. Visual records are fully protected, but some states have tried to regulate the audio portion of videos under wiretapping laws."


One of the main points of the article is that the law is not being respected by those tasked with upholding the law:

> Everyone in the United States — citizen or resident — has a constitutional right to record police who are performing their public duties. The police don’t have the right to stop you as long as you’re not disrupting their business, and they aren’t allowed to confiscate your phone or camera just because you were recording them. This is the consistent opinion of federal courts and the Supreme Court, which affirmed in 2014 (in a 9-0 decision) that cops need a warrant if they want to seize and search your cellphone.

> Of course, the nationwide protests are about the police ignoring civil rights. Indeed, the videos we’ve seen in the past week show widespread police lawlessness, with officers arbitrarily violating the rights of peaceful demonstrators in lawful assemblies.


Also make sure you have iCloud enabled so you can access the video later if your device is damaged or lost.


I think for non-Apple users Periscope allows to automatically stream and record an event right? No need to "finish" recording as it directly streams and saves it to their servers. Is that correct?


On Android you can configure it to automatically upload everything to Google Photos


On most Android phones after 3 fails the fingerprint is disabled. So touch it 3 times with your pinky or any finger that you didn't registered and that will do the trick.


> Cops may ask you not to record and even threaten you with arrest for recording. Do not be intimidated; it is your right to record without obstructing.

Better advice is to read the situation. Cops can make, and have made, people's lives very difficult, whether through legal harassment, false charges or bodily harm, and it is your word against a cop's when you go before a judge.


Not with video, though.


Phones can be confiscated or destroyed. Even if your video survives, it better have a clear shot of a crime and a clean chain of custody, because it's you versus a billion dollar union's team of lawyers.


>smashes your phone, then assaults you


I carry my insta 360 with me but dont' wear it. People can start wearing gopro if the want to record without being conspicuous.


I think I'll go buy gopro stock before their inevitable pivot to making inconspicuous body cams for people to wear every day.


yup, & perhaps Google Glass was merely a bit ahead of it's time and not quite the right product-market fit...

any one of these still need to automatically stream to a secure location


You can also press the power button five times rapidly and it goes into emergency mode. It makes a loud sound and calls 911 automatically after three seconds if you don't hit cancel. It also locks out FaceID.

So if you're under eminent attack this might be a better option. It's all configurable in setting though, so test it before you go protest.


All you have to hold is the power button to disable Touch ID. Adding the volume button does nothing additional on my iPhone 8.


You have to do power + volume down to get to that screen if you have a phone with no Touch ID (iPhone X and above). Just confirmed on mine.


It should work on iPhone 8. Perhaps you need to upgrade your iOS?

Pressing both should go into a mode where you can swipe to call emergency services or show your medical id if you have the feature.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076


If told to stop recording, I'd be tempted to reply, "Sir, I am recording for your protection."

Note well: I have not actually tried this. IANAL, and this is not legal advice. Your mileage may vary.


Why? What do you hope to achieve other than to possibly inflame the situation? I can't possibly believe that you think the cop is going to think "gee, that's a good point citizen, please carry on".


It forces the cop to either admit that he's a bad guy (or at least crossing the line), or else to not cross the line. It makes it so he can't try to pretend to me that he's squeaky clean while actually doing dirty stuff.


I don't think you're modeling the cop very well. They're not going to be in a state to reason or debate with you, and the statement "for your protection" if not paid close attention to sounds vaguely like a threat.


If you say that, they might claim they took it as a threat and were scared for their lives and shot you.


I feel that way about body cameras. If the cops camera is not working then nothing he says should be taken at face value


Hold down the power button for newer Android builds and press "Lockdown".


I believe this might need to be enabled somewhere in the settings.


Correct. Go into settings, search for "lockdown" and enable. On my Pixel 3 XL, I can then hold down the power button and while holding it a menu comes up that includes the option to shut it down, reboot, lockdown, or emergency.


Correct; thanks to your advice and GP's, I found this under Settings->Lock screen->Secure lock settings->Show Lockdown option.




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