Documentation for Sex Workers: Safety Records, Legal Evidence, and Protection Tools

When you're a sex worker, documentation for sex workers, the practice of safely recording client interactions, dates, locations, and behaviors to protect yourself from harm or legal trouble. Also known as safety records, it isn't about bureaucracy—it's about survival. Police can seize your phone without a warrant. Landlords can evict you even if your work is legal. Courts might ignore your testimony if you can't prove what happened. That’s why writing things down—clearly, quietly, and securely—is one of the most powerful tools you have.

This isn’t theoretical. In 2023, a sex worker in Manchester used a timestamped photo of a client’s license plate and a voice note of his threats to get a restraining order after he broke into her home. Another in Glasgow saved her tenancy by showing her landlord bank records and appointment logs that proved she wasn’t running an illegal business—just working independently. These aren’t outliers. They’re people using incident documentation, the systematic recording of unsafe encounters, threats, or violations to build a paper trail for legal or personal protection. And they’re using tools like SafetyPin, a secure, encrypted app designed for sex workers to log client info, share real-time location with trusted contacts, and store evidence without digital traces. You don’t need to be tech-savvy. You just need to know what to save, where to store it, and how to use it when things go wrong.

It’s not just about violence. Documentation helps you fight housing discrimination, challenge unfair police stops, and prove you’re not being trafficked when laws blur the line between consent and coercion. It’s how you defend your right to work safely in your own home. It’s how you get medical care without being judged. It’s how you stay employed when your landlord finds out what you do. The more you document—dates, names, messages, screenshots, voice memos—the less power others have over you.

Below, you’ll find real guides from sex workers who’ve been there: how to safely store photos without metadata, how to write an incident report that actually holds up, how to use digital tools that won’t get you tracked, and how to talk to lawyers or housing advocates without putting yourself at risk. These aren’t theory pieces. They’re step-by-step, no-fluff instructions from people who’ve had to fight for their safety—and won.