BASIC PRACTICES PART ONE: GET READY TO FILM STEP 1 Determine Your Role If you are an Intentional Documenter and plan to be in a situation where you expect to film human rights violations: • Know your rights before you press record. Rights vary from country-to-country and from city-to-city. Find out as much as possible about what you can and cannot legally film. • Protect your contacts. If you plan to be in a situation where your filming device could be confiscated, then delete or encrypt names of contacts, call logs, text messages, photographs, videos and audio files in advance. Consider using a different device that does not have personal information on it. • Learn more. The more you know about filming techniques, safe-guarding, organizing, managing and sharing your footage, the easier it will be to film safely, effectively and ethically. If you are an Accidental Documenter: If you unexpectedly became an eyewitness and captured valuable human rights footage that you are wondering what to do with, skip to PART 3: SAFEGUARD YOUR FOOTAGE on page 10. STEP 2 Security Assessment Safety comes first. If it’s too unsafe to film, don’t film, even if you intentionally planned to document human rights violations or accidentally found yourself in the wrong place at the right time. The answer to whether or not it’s safe will rarely be black and white. It will be a judgment call that only you can make. If you decide to film, try to follow the basic practices outlined below, or determine how to modify them to the situation you’re filming in. PHYSICAL SECURITY FOR MORE INFORMATION If you keep sensitive media or contacts on your computer, learn more about protecting your files here: securityinabox. org/chapter-4 If you’re already using PGP for your email, you can also use it to encrypt your files; try GPGTools for Mac or Gpg4win for Windows. FOR MORE INFORMATION DIGITAL SECURITY PHYSICAL SECURITY See the “Assessing and Responding to Risks” guide from the Committee to Protect Journalists bit.ly/CPJ_ AssessRisks 59 VIDEO AS EVIDENCE: BASIC PRACTICES V 1.0