Digital safety and source protection
Companion guidance for the source protection screening: how reporters and editors reduce the chance that a story, a photo, a document or a reporting habit exposes a source.
The source protection screening reviews a draft for direct identifiers and for combinations of ordinary details that together narrow the pool of people who could have spoken to you.
Start a source protection review- CPJ Digital Safety Kit
Accounts, phishing, devices, encrypted communication, secure internet use and crossing borders.
- CPJ Safety Notes
Short, situation-specific advisories for journalists.
- CPJ resources for protecting against online abuse
Doxxing and harassment preparation and response.
- CPJ editors' checklist: protecting staff and freelancers against online abuse
Newsroom-level responsibilities before and during an attack.
- CPJ basic preparedness risk assessment
Assess assignment risk before reporting begins.
- Freedom of the Press Foundation — digital security
Newsroom training, guides and SecureDrop for secure submissions.
- EFF Surveillance Self-Defense
Threat modeling and step-by-step tool guides.
- RCFP Reporter's Privilege Compendium
State-by-state shield-law protection for source identities and unpublished material.
- Coalition Against Online Violence
Response support for journalists facing coordinated harassment.
These checklists summarize widely published journalism security guidance, including CPJ’s Digital Safety Kit. They are a starting point, not a security audit, and cannot guarantee that a source will remain unidentified.