TEN MINUTES, ONCE.
Same hygiene your lawyer would tell you to do.
This is a one-time setup checklist for the phone you write, record and keep unreleased work on.
It is not about having something to hide. It is about the ordinary fact that your drafts, voice memos and session files live on a device you carry everywhere — and that a phone which opens with your face can be opened without your say-so.
Do the steps for your phone and skip the other platform entirely. That is about ten minutes. Everything after it is short, and you only need it once.
Nothing here is exotic — it’s the boring stuff that actually holds up.
Why artists, specifically
Creative work gets used as evidence. A Texas rapper’s best-known song was played for juries at both of his murder trials, six years apart. Researchers have counted more than 800 cases of art — overwhelmingly rap — used in court against the person who made it. California became the first state to limit the practice in 2022. The federal bill has been introduced twice and still is not law.
This is not about expecting a courtroom, and none of it says stop writing. It is about what a draft is: first-person, in persona, unfinished — and easy to read literally by anyone who doesn’t know what a persona is. The most misreadable thing you own should not also be the easiest thing to take. That’s the whole page.
The one rule
Your face and your finger are not passwords. They’re convenient, and they can be used without your cooperation. A code you know stays in your head.
That doesn’t mean you have to type a code every time you look at your phone. It means you know how to switch to code-only fast when it matters, and the things that count — your notes, your password app — never open with your face.
iPhone
Set a real passcode
Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Change Passcode → Passcode Options → Custom Alphanumeric Code. Six digits is the floor. A short phrase you’ll never forget is better. Not your birthday, not your area code, not “1234.”
Learn the kill switch
Practice it now, twice. Hold the side button + either volume button for about two seconds until the power-off / SOS screen appears. Tap Cancel. Face ID is now off until you enter your passcode. This works with the phone in your pocket. You don’t have to look at the screen.
Take Face ID off the stuff that matters
Settings → Face ID & Passcode → turn off iPhone Unlock if you’re comfortable going code-only. If not, at minimum: Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Other Apps → turn Face ID off for Notes, your password manager, your DAW/recording apps, and anything with drafts in it.
Erase after 10 tries
Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Erase Data → ON. Only do this if your music is backed up somewhere you control (see below). Ten wrong guesses and the phone wipes itself. That’s the point.
Kill the previews
Settings → Notifications → Show Previews → When Unlocked. Your lock screen shouldn’t read your texts out loud to whoever’s holding the phone.
Stop the cloud from keeping copies you didn't mean to keep
Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Saved to iCloud → turn off Notes and Voice Memos unless you want Apple holding those. If you keep iCloud on for anything, turn on Advanced Data Protection (Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Advanced Data Protection). This makes Apple unable to read your backups even if asked. Write down the recovery key and keep it somewhere physical.
Lock down when it's real
Settings → Privacy & Security → Lockdown Mode. This turns off a lot of convenience features (link previews, some attachments, some connections) in exchange for making your phone very hard to break into. Turn it on when you need it. Turn it off when you don’t. Know where the switch is.
Android
Menus vary by brand (Pixel, Samsung, etc.). Search Settings for the feature name if the path below doesn’t match.
Set a real PIN or password
Settings → Security → Screen lock → PIN (6+ digits) or Password. No pattern — patterns are easy to watch and easy to guess from screen smudges.
Learn the kill switch
Hold the power button → tap Lockdown. Fingerprint, face, and Smart Lock all go off until you enter your PIN. If you don’t see Lockdown in the power menu: Settings → Display → Lock screen → Show lockdown option (or search “lockdown”).
Take biometrics off the stuff that matters
Settings → Security → Face & Fingerprint Unlock → turn off face unlock entirely (fingerprint is somewhat better than face, PIN-only is best). Inside your password manager and notes app, turn off “unlock with biometrics” in their own settings.
Lock screen notifications
Settings → Notifications → Notifications on lock screen → Hide sensitive content or Don’t show.
Cloud copies
Settings → Google → Backup → check what’s included. Turn off backup for Notes/Keep, recorder apps, and anything with drafts. Google’s backups are end-to-end encrypted when you have a screen lock set — keep that lock strong, because it’s the key.
Encryption is already on
Modern Android encrypts by default. Your PIN is what protects the key. That’s why step 1 matters.
For everyone
- Password manager, PIN-locked.
- Bitwarden (free), 1Password, or the built-in Apple/Google one. Every account gets a different password you don’t know. The manager unlocks with a PIN or master password — not your face.
- Passkeys are good.
- When a site offers “sign in with a passkey,” take it. It’s more secure than a password and can’t be phished. Just make sure the phone unlock behind it is a code, not a face.
- Two-factor: use an app, not a text message.
- SIM swaps are real. Use the code generator in your password manager, or Google Authenticator / Aegis / Raivo.
- Drafts stay local.
- Anything unreleased — lyrics, references, session bounces — lives on the device or on a drive you own, not in a shared cloud folder with a link. When you send stems to the studio, use the WARLUSH upload, not a text thread.
- Backups you control.
- An encrypted drive at home, or a cloud that can’t read your files (Proton Drive, or iCloud with Advanced Data Protection on). Not a Google Drive folder shared with six people.
- What you don’t keep can’t be taken.
- Old voice memos, old drafts, old screenshots. Clean house once a month.
In one breath
Real passcode. Practice the kill switch until it’s muscle memory. Face off the apps that matter. Notifications hidden. Notes and voice memos off the cloud or encrypted. Password manager on a PIN. Clean house monthly.
This is not legal advice. It’s phone hygiene. If it ever matters, your lawyer talks — you don’t.