Many of us will not be covering the next Olympics and contending with the intrusive surveillance of a nation-state. But it is essential to know the best ways to keep information – and ourselves – safe when covering sensitive topics.
Ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has outlined the essential practices for journalists and media outlets to follow in a nation known for stringent limitations on information.
For instance, using TikTok on a burner phone could protect your passwords, end-to-end encrypted messaging apps could prevent exposing your sources and a VPN may let you access content that would otherwise be censored.
"As far as possible, avoid using technological resources that entail a risk of censorship or surveillance by the Chinese authorities, either because they were developed by or are operated by a company subject to Chinese regulation (such as WeChat, Baidu, TikTok), or because user data is stored in servers accessible to the Chinese authorities," the article reads.
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