<
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/technology/personaltech/travel-burner-phone-cbp.html>
"When I travel to Asia this summer, I plan to leave my iPhone at home. Instead,
I’ll pack a different phone lacking my staple apps, like Instagram, Slack and
Signal. It won’t even be logged in to my work email.
No, I’m not planning a digital detox. I’m choosing to travel with what’s known
as a burner phone because my personal device contains sensitive data that I
don’t want others, particularly U.S. border protection officers, to search.
For over a decade, the federal government has had the authority to conduct
border searches of travelers’ personal electronics, including phones, laptops
and tablets. In recent years, such inspections have steadily increased, though
they happen to only a small portion of people entering the United States.
Last year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reported that it had
conducted roughly 43,000 electronics searches, up from about 38,000 in 2023.
To be clear, I may be particularly paranoid as a journalist who is constantly
working to protect confidential sources from being outed, so a burner phone is
an extreme measure that most people won’t find practical or even necessary.
Hilton Beckham, the assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection,
said in a statement that less than 0.01 percent of travelers have their devices
searched. These searches, she said, are conducted to look for content related
to contraband, terrorism and information related to visitor admissibility.
But in recent incidents, travelers have been denied entry into the United
States in part because of phone data, such as photos of guns and social media
posts about protests.
“The bigger concern is that the government can single out people it wants to
search,” said Esha Bhandari, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
“We’ve seen anecdotal evidence of more aggressive searches on the border,
including lawyers who have attorney-client privileges and people seen as
dissidents.”
In other words, while no rules have changed when it comes to entering the
United States, a shift in how frequently the policies are enforced may be
underway. Vacationers and business travelers alike should be judicious about
the data they carry on their devices.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and the approach that works best for you
depends on your lifestyle and profession. Here’s what to do."
Via
The RISKS Digest Volume 34 Issue 63:
https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34/63
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
