Exploring at-risk users’ mental models of Apple Lockdown Mode in Latin America and the Caribbean
State-sponsored spyware tools like Pegasus have been extensively deployed across Latin America and the Caribbean. This report exposes how at-risk users in the region protect themselves and their communities against these threats through twelve in-depth interviews with journalists, activists, and human rights defenders.
We found that human rights defenders view digital security holistically inseparable from physical safety and collective protection networks. In contexts where surveillance and device seizure are immediate realities, technical solutions cannot be evaluated in isolation.
It was also elicited that adoption is driven by trust. Users enable protective features like Apple’s Lockdown Mode primarily through recommendations from peers and trainers who translate technical capabilities into accessible guidance. However, Lockdown Mode faces a critical usability paradox—it remains invisible until it disrupts essential workflows, leading users to toggle it on only during self-perceived threats rather than maintaining continuous protection.
Effective spyware protection must integrate seamlessly into the trust-based context-specific security practices these communities depend on. This requires more precise system feedback, better communication about protection tradeoffs, greater user control, and improved compatibility with tools defenders rely on for their work. Technical features succeed only when they support rather than disrupt—the broader ecosystems of peer support and collective defense that sustain high-risk users.