A French academic was recently denied entry to the U.S.for having anti-Trump text messages on his phone. Immigrants, trans people, and Trump critics are firmly in the crosshairsย of the US government โย which means nowโs the time to clean up your digital footprintโespecially if you’re queer or trans. This reduce digital footprint checklist walks you through how to minimize your personal data and lock down your phone before travel.
Why should you do this? The simple explanation is to protect your privacy, but keep reading for a longer explanation and links I recommend to learn more.
Reduce Your Digital Footprint โ What to Know Before You Begin
This list is broken into two levels: easy and medium. Pick your poison based on your risk level, time, and patience.
Easy stuff is the digital hygiene equivalent of brushing your teeth. Low effort, low tech, and honestly, things everyone should be doing already.
Medium stuffย takes a bit more elbow grease. These steps offer stronger privacy protection, especially if youโre someone more likely to be flagged, followed, or profiled.
I pulled this list together for myself so I could begin working on things slowly โ when I had extra time.
Some of these are just best practices I’ll get into the habit of doing.
Other are strategic steps I’ll take when I need to โ temporary settings I’ll undo when I’m back home and feeling more settled.
I spent a couple of hours reviewing best practices from digital security experts to create an actionable checklist that protected my data, but didn’t feel overwhelming.
Breaking it out into levels allowed me to understand how much time an action might take, so I didn’t bite off more than I could handle.
A couple caveats
First, there’s already a mountain of your personal data floating around on the internet thanks to *cough* unending data breaches.
In just the first half of 2024, over a billion records were exposed in breaches. So some of your personal info is already out in the wild.
And if you changed your gender marker legally, whether for your state driver’s license or with the SSA, that information is on record. So you can’t exactly go stealth.
Second, how deep you go with this depends on youโyour identity, your threat level, and your personal tolerance for risk.
Why Protect Your Data Now?
Because things are changing faster than we can keep up, and it never hurts to be proactive.
The US stopped issuing third gender passports and is currently processing passport applications from transgender folks with the assigned at birth sex. New countries are issuing travel warnings against coming to the US on a near daily basis, as Europeans, Canadians and graduate students on legally-obtained visas get turned away at the border or are hunted down and unlawfully detained by ICE.
It might seem like a small thing you can do, but taking control of your phone data can keep it from being used against you.
While personal safety in the US is top of mind for many queer folks right now, it’s not the only use case for locking down your device.
If you’re headed to a protest, these actions prevent cops from accessing sensitive data on your phone.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a downloadable guide for protecting your phone before a protest โ save a copy and share with your friends!
If you’re visiting a country where it’s unsafe to be LGBTQ+, hiding sensitive data protects you from being penalized.
Foreign tourists tend to get a pass in countries where same-sex activities are criminalized. These countries usually value tourist dollars and don’t want negative press from arresting or detaining putting gay tourists over a kiss. But you never know…
I interviewed the gay travel bloggers Nomadic Boys for my book on LGBTQ travel. They told me about the time they got kicked out of Lebanon and told never to come back โย all because they slipped up and posted gay pics on Instagram during their stay.
Here’s their post about visiting Lebanon as a gay couple (and what not to do while you’re there).
TLDR: Part of being discreet when traveling to a county that’s less accepting than yours is taking precautions with publicly accessible data about you โ especially data that outs you as LGBTQ+.
Easy Wins: Quick Privacy Fixes Anyone Can Do โย Even if You’re Not Tech Savvy
- Shut down old social media accounts youโre no longer using โor, if you want to keep the handle so someone can’t impersonate you, delete all posts or set data to private.
- Deactivate old accounts, like unused email addresses that are just collecting spam.
- Stop tagging your location in posts. Not only does this protect beautiful natural places from overtourism, it protects YOU from being targeted by someone watching your every move.
- Delete apps you havenโt opened in months. This post breaks down which apps share the most personal data with third parties. Start with those heavy hitters (*cough* Meta).
- Revoke location sharing access wherever possible.
- Turn off location sharing altogetherโyour friends don’t need to know where you are.
- Turn offย biometric unlockingย (Face ID, fingerprint). Police canโt force you to give up a passcodeโ but theyย canย use your face or thumb to unlock your smartphone.
- Remove personal information from public profiles. Choose what you want to share about yourself online and limit the use of any data that could be used to track you or could help someone guess a password. Basically โย no kid names, pet names, birthdays, street names etc on social media bios, website, etc.
- Switch toย Signalย for private chatsโespecially if you’re talking about things like abortion access, trans rights or protests.
- Power down your phone or laptop in high-risk situationsโfrom airports to land border crossings, or even when youโre leaving devices unattended at coffeeshops.
- Delete period trackers and health apps tied to sensitive topics.
- Avoid public WiFi โ you’re just giving away your data to whoever’s listening in. The only exception? If you’ve got a VPN.
Medium Level Data Privacy: More Effort, More Protection
- Scrub your personal info from data brokers. You can DIY this (here’s my favorite resource for that) or buy a subscription to a service that does this for you. EasyOptOuts is a solid budget pick.
- Use a password manager to securely protect all your logins.ย 1Passwordย is great (and free for journalists, so it’s what I use), but there are other solid options too.
- Update your passwords across the board with long, unique combos. Then, store them in your password manager .
- Makeย an offline mapย in Google Maps for your next trip, then download it to your phone. I do this every time I travel to avoid data roaming charges. Taking the map offline prevents data tracking.
- Encrypt your laptopโFileVaultย for Macs,ย BitLockerย for Windows Pro. It protects your stuff if, say, CBP tries to do through your device.
- Go into your device settings and limit what gets backed up to the cloud, especially sensitive content like photos, messages, or contacts. For more protection, turn on encryption for cloud backups (like iCloud).
- Start using aย VPN. It encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address. If youโre trans, traveling for abortion care, or part of another targeted group, this is a must. Here’s a good guide to selecting a VPN.
Data Protection โ My Favorite Resources to Learn More
I designed this checklist so you can take action. But if you want to learn more about the context, or get recommendations for other situations, these are the data protection resources I found most helpful:
- C.A. Goldberg Law:ย Controlling your public data
- WIRED: The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance
- Freedom of the Press Foundation:ย An in-depth guide to choosing a VPN
- Freedom of the Press Foundation:ย Preparing for Online Harassment
I hope this checklist helps you prepare for your next trip! If you would like a downloadable version you can save to your device, sign up for the email newsletter. Subscribers get a whole library of digital freebies, queer travel maps, and twice weekly updates on the latest in global LGBTQ travel news.
