I think that it is the Customs and Border Protection agency that might search someone’s phone, as they arrive at a U.S. airport or land crossing. They’ve been doing it for a while, ostensibly to find evidence of terrorism or trafficking. The details are beyond my expertise (I’m not a lawyer) but the Supreme Court has ruled that the government has pretty broad power at or near border crossings.
(The TSA might ask you to turn on your device, to verify that it is an actual device and not a cleverly disguised bomb, but not search through the contents.)
An interesting, although somewhat impractical idea, since one generally wants to have a phone *while *traveling. You know, letting the wife know you got there safely, calling for a Lyft from the airport, meeting up with colleagues, etc. Also, “overnight” across international borders isn’t always actually overnight in my experience.
And I’m not particularly worried about them “seeing something;” I just don’t like the idea of them peering into my life that way, and possibly copying private data or even keeping the phone.
If one were really paranoid, carrying an inexpensive “bland” travel phone, into which you could switch your SIM card, and shipping your regular phone on ahead, might be a worthwhile option. I’m not there. Yet.
I understand that and I understand it’s not about you, I’m just thinking that if there was something on my phone that could lead to me getting arrested, I’d do what I could to not carry it through a border, especially if I knew it was likely to get looked at. Getting a burner to use while you wait would make sense.
I’m not really sure what your’re concerned about. Yes, the Canadian customs officer might demand to check your phone. I was stopped at the border for about 40 minutes or so while they searched my trailer. Among other things, they made me unlock my phone so they could access it.
I’m far more concerned about the U.S. government than the Canadian, although I’d be interested in hearing about Canadian practices (or abuses) as well.
I’m concerned about the encroachment of government on individual privacy in general, as well as anything that might delay or inconvenience me while traveling. I don’t believe I should make it easy for the government – any government – to invade my privacy and violate my rights. I don’t accept the maxim, “As long as you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”
I don’t have any nude pictures of myself (or anyone else) on my phone, or classified Top Secret documents, or the secret recipe for Coca-Cola. That doesn’t mean I want government agents looking through or copying my stuff, and if I could stop them doing so without great inconvenience to myself, I would.
As it is, the likelihood that they’ll even bother to look at my devices is low enough that I’ll probably end up doing nothing. But I want to consider all my options.
Typically when you are travelling on planes flying from a Canadian airport to a US airport, you actually clear US customs and Immigration in Canada, before you get on the plane. Your plane will land at a normal domestic terminal in the US.
This also will reduce your risk of being frisked, searched, or asked to hand over your devices.
Scenario: if you are a famous reporter, then the answer is, do not store the telephone number of your controversial, confidential source on your device and then go through a border check. If you do lose sight of your phone/laptop even for a few moments, let alone for a “forensic” check, then it’s compromised and you had better sell it cheap*. If you deliberately unlock it upon request then you doubly deserve to get fired, but, again, by the previous reasoning there won’t be anything on it but the contact information for your home and regional office, embassy, and maybe your family.
If you are a lawyer/businessman/anybody else with private information then similar advice applies.
*ETA or, better, donate it to one of those security researchers who are happy to publish warnings about the latest government malware. Your colleagues will appreciate it.
Buy a burner or a cheap refurbished phone on Amazon, put your sim card in it and maybe install a few games or something. Will it kill you not to have your regular phone with you for a few days?
If there’s important info that you’ll need while you’re away, store it on a cloud drive that can be accessed by a browser and do a factory reset before crossing the border so the browser is clean.
I’m the same age group etc as you and I have never worried about the concern that my phone or laptop could be searched. All they are going to find is photos of my cat.
I’m pretty sure they were mainly concerned with texting and phone call history. If they find a text that says, “I’ll be in Canada tomorrow with the drugs. Bring the cash!” or some other evidence of illegal activity, like “I have the guns for you. See you soon”, then there would have been an issue. Fortunately, I was smart enough to remove all those texts before leaving Billings, MT.
I’m not sure how long the total search took. I said 40 minutes, but it could have been as long as 90 mins or so. I just don’t remember. They had me pull my SUV and trailer into a garage, then they had me wait in the office. After a while of sitting in the office, they called the front desk to speak with me. That’s when he asked me the unlock code for my phone. It uses a pattern to unlock, so that was fun trying to coach him through the phone on how to properly connect the dots. I imagine if it used my fingerprint or face recognition, the would have had to bring it to me.
They were extremely polite and professional throughout the whole process. I don’t have any issues with people protecting their borders. Had a stop like that occurred while I was just freely traveling through the country, that would be a different story. But such a stop at a border crossing is no different, IMO, than entering a secured facility or courthouse. You need to consent to a search if you choose to enter. A phone or computer is like a briefcase full of files nowadays. If I have child porn, bomb-making instructions, anti-government literature or other nefarious files, on my phone, it’s the same as having that stuff in a briefcase. They have a right to check, IMO. Sure there can be private stuff on there. But there can be private stuff in your luggage as well.
It’s a question of where to draw the line in how much a country needs to know about you before they let you in for a short trip. They can check my bags and car but they don’t need to look at my phone contents. That would just confuse them and would be unproductive for both parties.
Also I hate stupid questions.
“What’s the purpose of your visit?”
“What?”
“Are you here for tourism or business or…?”
“Butt-fucking”
“Excuse me!!?”
“I’m here to butt fuck every consenting butt that I can find and I don’t think that’s either business or tourism, exactly.”
“Sir, I don’t appreciate your language and I don’t think I can approve your passage.”
“This is homophobic behavior of a government employee and I want to speak to your boss”
This is one of the most fascinating examples of moving the goalposts that I’ve ever seen.
You start out by saying that (in effect) you’re afraid that border guards are technological wizards who can magically detect when a phone has been wiped and reset. And then you mysteriously drop that argument and talk about people who have been detained for refusing to let agents search their unwiped, unreset phones.
So which is it? Do you have a legitimate concern about general privacy, or are you so paranoid that you ascribe powers and knowledge to average government employees that they simply don’t have?
Being as we’re not engaged in a debate here, the accusation of moving goalposts is irrelevant, inapposite, and frankly bizarre.
Further, why in the world do my concerns have to be limited to the ludicrous either/or case you have presented? And how is it paranoid to ask what technical capabilities employees of the government (average or not) may have? When I took the test to join the NSA 35 years ago, they proudly claimed to have technology five years in advance of what the rest of the world considered state of the art. So who knows what the government could glean from having a phone in its possession for a few minutes? That was in fact what I was asking about. (I’ll admit that my idea that they could force someone to do a restore was probably a stretch.)
What is your cite for the claim that government officials couldn’t tell that a phone has been recently wiped? The fact that you think something is improbable is no more authoritative than my thinking it is possible. Or more correctly, my wondering what is possible, and asking people for their experiences and advice, which is all that I have done in this thread.
