As international travel has picked up, so have worries about border privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has produced a detailed online navigator. This resource is designed to provide the best practices that travelers should follow to protect their personal data when traveling across borders. With increasing scrutiny of electronic devices by border agents, understanding rights and precautions is essential for anyone entering or exiting the United States.
Sophia Cope, senior staff attorney at the EFF told the Verge that there’s a lot of confusion when it comes to border privacy. “It’s anyone’s guess when it comes to border privacy,” she emphasized, shining a light on the uncertainty travelers encounter when asked about their devices. Recent cases have underscored these challenges in stark fashion. One particularly high-profile case was that of a Brown University professor, who was deported to Lebanon after customs agents found an image of Hezbollah’s leader on her phone.
The EFF has outlined helpful do’s and don’ts for travelers in plain language. They need to be aware of their rights when they are made to unlock their devices. Will Greenberg, the EFF’s senior staff technologist, underscores this key point. Today, nearly all smartphones and laptops employ strong cryptographic keys to encrypt their data. The user needs to unlock the device with a passcode first in order to have these keys available. This requirement provides an additional layer of protection against unauthorized access.
Just last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents conducted over 47,000 searches on electronic devices. This represents a tenfold increase from just ten years ago. As things stand today, under existing policy, these agents are only able to retain information that they find directly installed on the device. They cannot even see aggregated data stored in the cloud. Rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union assert that these protections should extend to lawful permanent residents, such as green card holders.
The government of Canada has already warned against traveling to the United States due to possible harassment and detainment at borders. They warn that untold numbers of travelers have had their devices seized and not returned for days or weeks. Patricia Egger, director of security at end-to-end encrypted email provider Proton Mail, expounds on the practices used by border agents. This is precisely why a border agent should not be able to turn on a device, she clarified. They have to responsibly wield a powerful tool like Cellebrite.
There are steps travelers should take to protect their sensitive data long in advance of any trip abroad. The EFF recommends that people traveling do not remove devices from view and take better precautions, including putting devices in airplane mode to stop remote file downloads. The Canadian government’s guidance echoes this sentiment: “Before crossing the border, put your device in airplane mode to ensure remote files don’t get downloaded accidentally.”
In situations where travelers may need to unlock their devices, Egger recommends logging in themselves rather than providing PINs or passwords directly. If you have had your account password shared against your will, change it as soon as possible,” Cancellation said. This practice forms a first line of defense against the possible dangers of transmitting sensitive personal information.
Travelers need to continue to be aware that everything they do could be misinterpreted by a border agent. The EFF’s traveler’s guide advises travelers that hard drive wiping can trigger alarms if an agent catches you in the act. This can create an atmosphere of suspicion around the traveler’s purpose. Notoriously, lying to a border agent is a felony. Agents tend to have a very broad reading of what constitutes dishonesty.
Cope emphasizes that basic searches may occur for arbitrary reasons or even based on a mere hunch regarding a traveler’s appearance or answers to preliminary questions. She noted that other challenges emerge at border crossings. This is usually done at the behest of other federal agencies, such as the FBI, or if they’re connected to someone else of interest.
Travelers should be aware of the possibility that some posts or images may remain on their phones’ memory caches, even if primarily stored on social media company servers. This discrepancy is especially important when devices are in airplane mode.
The ramifications of these practices are serious for anyone who travels abroad. The digital privacy landscape is rapidly evolving. Travelers need to be educated on what their rights are and what the best strategies are for safeguarding their personal data.
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