A New Free Seminar Teaches Documentary Filmmakers When and How to Opt Out of AI

Audiences need to be able to trust the footage they’re seeing when they’re watching the news or a documentary. But increasingly, popular video editing software includes AI functionality that you as a filmmaker may not know is there, let alone how you turn it off.

An upcoming seminar will address those concerns and help educate journalists and documentarians about when to opt out of AI and exactly how to do so. Field of Vision and Freedom of the Press Foundation are launching the sixth installment of their Digital Security Clinic, a free, online series of courses aimed at helping documentary filmmaking professionals and journalists with their digital footprint, IndieWire can reveal exclusively.

The clinics have over five years helped support over 500 filmmaking teams to date, and some of the early interest in this edition of the seminar is already surpassing last year’s edition.

This year’s Digital Security Clinic features most notably a new session titled “When and How to Opt Out of AI,” set for September 10, a session that Field of Vision co-creator Charlotte Cook told IndieWire was a much-requested topic from users of the site. She sounded the alarm on tools that may use AI in subtle ways, whether for things like auto correct or how they’re integrated into search engines, so it’s important for filmmakers to know exactly what their process is, prove that they have authored something, and do so for audiences who need their own trust in the media.

“Filmmakers have to be able to protect the imagery, what they’re working with, the footage, and be able to stand behind it knowing that there’s no influence that they don’t know about,” Cook said.

The trainers from Freedom of the Press as part of the session will step attendees through how to turn off certain AI features within editing tools and apps, where can they upload footage to protect it from AI crawling, how to tell whether things have been enhanced or edited, and more.

“It’s how to have a risk assessment as you evaluate AI tools and how things integrate,” Cook said. “It will even look at things like transcription services, how to protect your intellectual property and make sure that it is your intellectual property. One of the challenges we’re finding is, where is ownership in some of these tools? Some of them are changing user policies and making sure we’re protecting across the board that intellectual property.”

That’s just one session of five being offered over the next month however. Other sessions will highlight digital security, being able to communicate securely when traveling across borders or in sensitive areas, how to determine safe storage and encryption methods for your footage, and how to minimize your digital footprint including removing private material from your personal social media accounts.

Field of Vision offers a variety of resources and guides on these topics at https://www.digitalsecurity.film/. See the full schedule from the Digital Security Clinic below:

Getting Started With Digital Security, Thursday, August 13th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Topics: Using risk assessment to strategize your approach to digital security, protecting your accounts from hacking and phishing attacks, securing your phones and laptops against digital and physical threats

Communicating Securely, Thursday, August 20th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Topics: Using your risk assessment to select the “right” tool for communicating with your sources, maximizing safety through app settings, building a communications plan for sensitive contacts

Protecting Your Footage, Thursday, August 27th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Topics: Using your risk assessment to determine safe storage for footage, strategies for using encryption to protect your footage, considerations for crossing borders while protecting sensitive documents and footage

Minimizing Your Digital Footprint, Thursday, September 3rd, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Topics: Auditing your digital footprint, removing sensitive information, identifying how personal data is collected in the first place, taking steps to prevent browsing data from ending up in unexpected places

When and How to Opt Out of AI, Thursday, September 10th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Topics: Using your risk assessment to evaluate AI tools and integrations, transcription services, and protecting your intellectual property

Sign-ups for group training sessions are now open at bit.ly/digitalsecurity2026.