I saw this article in my local paper this morning and thought it was worth sharing. This is the original from the Associated Press.
LONDON (AP) — Planning an international trip? Travelers should prepare for the possibility of extra scrutiny of their phones when crossing borders, especially when entering the United States.
The Canadian government warned travelers in a recent travel advisory that U.S. border agents are entitled to search your electronic devices and “don’t need to provide a reason when requesting a password to open your device.”
Some recent cases have made travelers nervous about their privacy, such as when a Brown University professor with a U.S. visa was deported to Lebanon after border agents found a photo of Hezbollah’s leader on her phone.
“While 100% privacy may be impossible in these situations, there are a few things you can easily do that make it much harder for someone to see your private data even with physical access to your device,” said Patricia Egger, head of security at encrypted service Proton Mail.
Here are tips on protecting your device privacy while travelling…
My bold.
I’m guessing this might also apply to entering BACK into the USA after traveling someplace else.
I don’t travel at all anymore, but I know plenty of y’all do. Some very good suggestions here. Some of these tips WRT your phone might also apply if you plan to take part in any of the multiple protest demonstrations that are happening all over the country these days.
I started doing this during the first Trump admin. The article notes that American citizens can be compelled to use biometric authentication (touching with the fingerprint for example) but a password or code that must be actively entered has more complex justification. So I turned off my fingerprint option and powered the phone off on entry.
These days, I don’t travel back to the US at all. But if I absolutely had to, I’d pull my old phone out of the drawer, factory reset it, and then set it up with the absolute minimum sign-in stuff to make it “mine.” My everyday phone then stays here in Europe.
The odds I’d be targeted for search may be low. But considering my very, very anti-Trump online activity, no sense taking the risk.
My brother went to the Philippines to see his wife a few weeks ago, and the two of them took a side jaunt to Thailand. When he got back (alone), Security put him through the ringer, demanded he give them his phone, etc. Never once did they tell him what they suspected him of.
Took him a few days later to figure it out: middled-aged male from a wealthy country, traveling alone to Thailand and the Philippines. Draw your own conclusions. My assumption is that they were looking for either CSAM or video evidence of him having sex with minors (which would also be CSAM). All they saw were vacation photos of him and his beloved here and there, enjoying their time together.
Just an observation from watching various Border Patrol police-style TV shows, but you can also be required to hand over your unlocked electronic devices to the agents when entering Canada or Australia.
And on reading the linked article, so can those entering Britain.
I’ve crossed borders into more than 4 dozen countries. Only on a single occasion did authorities ever demand that I unlock my phone so they can search through photos, messages and internet history. That incident was when I entered Canada in 2014.
If they’ve noticed that I’ve been giving the finger to the portrait of Trump on the waiting room wall on my visits to the American embassy, those odds go up considerably.
At one time, the worry was of other countries (either the government, private companies or criminal gangs) spying on your devices as a visitor. My company, in fact, has strict rules about taking company-owned computers or phones overseas. Now the concern is of the US government spying on your device when you re-enter the United States.
And here is a gift link to a New York Times article on how to secure your devices.
Since I have no desire to end up in a detention centre or, god forbid, a random Central American gulag, I have no intention of going to the US in the foreseeable future. I will seriously consider getting a basic, non-smart phone for travel.
Next year, America is supposed to host the World Cup. And in three years, the Summer Olympic Games. That is in addition to the normal tourist traffic. How many potential visitors are being discouraged from coming?
I’ll be attending a major industry conference here in June- it’s the largest of the year for my industry and normally attracts about 1/2 the attendees from other countries, in particular Europe. I’m hearing rumblings that registrations are waaaay down.
Interestingly, it rotates around the US and every 4th year is in Canada. Last year was Canada’s turn. It would have been interesting if it were in Canada this year.
Honestly I am not as horrified by this as most here seem to be. As has been pointed out these actions have been used as part of security purview for a long time. The contents of my phone are boring. Help yourself.
I would not put this administration above having phones searched for DEI supportive content and harassing all who do not swear fealty to MAGA, but is there any evidence that this is being abused in inappropriate ways any more than ever? (I suspect inappropriate profiling has been a longstanding issue.)
Has Canada changed their laws and practices in the last 11 years? I doubt it. It’s disingenuous fear-mongering for the Canadian government to “warn” travelers about U.S. border agents searching electronic devices when: 1) The Canadian government’s border agents perform the exact same seizures and searches (reasonless/warrantless demands for travelers to unlock their devices and submit to a data search); 2) U.S. agents, just like Canada, have always been entitled to this type of search. It’s not a new rule, so nothing has changed from last year; 3) Pretty much every country has similar, or more invasive, laws governing agents’ authority at border crossings.
Traveling internationally for two decades, and the only country forcing me to unlock my phone so they can browse my pictures and messages was Canada. Albania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Republic of Georgia… none of them ever felt the need to search my phone. Good ole Canada, though? Different story. Nice of them to warn the world that the U.S. agents might do the same thing Canadian agents do.
I also have my 3-year old former phone which I could factory reset. Could I then ‘transfer’ my number back to that phone, use it while traveling, then transfer the number back to my current phone when I return home?
They’ve had the power to do this for a long time. They’re just being more aggressive (and maybe selective) about using that power. If you travel to ports of entry (anywhere on the planet), prepare to be “violated”.
If you’re worried about handing over your data and having it in their system into perpetuity, get a burner phone while abroad and leave it abroad. That way when you come back, it looks slightly less suspicious to have a phone you’re carrying ‘for reasons’ (they might suspect you’re doing illicit business with that ‘new’ phone).
My daughter went with her boyfriend last summer, to a wedding in Canada.
Her phone was taken both ways.
Her boyfriend who is a brown Muslim, he was only required to open his phone on return to US. The agent looked over his shoulder and passed him on. My daughter had to wait at the security kiosk and Xrays thingy for 20 minutes longer. They brought her phone back and sent her thru.
