Canada's privacy commissioner 'very concerned' about U.S. border phone searches

[inanna]

Source: The Canadian Press/CBC

Posted: Sep 19, 2017 8:45 AM ET

Canada's privacy czar says Canadians should be "very concerned" about their cellphones, computers and other electronic devices being searched by U.S. border agents.

Daniel Therrien told a House of Commons committee Monday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers can look at mobile devices and even demand passwords under American law.

The privacy commissioner cited statistics indicating U.S. border searches of mobile phones had increased between 2015 and 2016.

He said the devices contain a lot of sensitive information and people should be very concerned.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-border-cellphone-password-search-1.4296331

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Applies to US citizens too

http://www.businessinsider.com/can-us-border-agents-search-your-phone-at-the-airport-2017-2

There is some discrimination:

In 25 cases from 2016 NBC analyzed by talking to people who had their phones searched at the border and verifying the instances with experts, 23 of the victims were Muslim. Several of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit are Muslim or people of color.

"US citizens and green-card holders have the right to request an attorney," he said. "It's not clear at all whether the government has been respecting those requests to the extent that it should."

The 19,033 travelers who had their devices searched in 2016 were among 391 million travelers to the US that year. In 2015, 8,503 travelers had their devices searched, and through April 2017, 14,993 travelers had their devices searched.

From October 2008 to June 2010, by contrast, over 6,500 people had their electronic devices searched at the border, nearly half of whom were US citizens, according to government data provided to the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request.

[OnlinePoker]

2. Canada Border Services Agency does it as well

Supreme Court of Canada allowed limited searches without a warrant by border services. The info has to be stored on the device in question, not sitting in the cloud for it to be accessed. They consider emails that have been opened to be fair game.

[dembotoz]

3. Saw an article in the times about the use of burner phones for border crossing

So leave ur thousand buck apple money sucker at home and get a cheap phone like my Moto...
It works well enough and if it doesn't have most of ur contacts and business files on it...who cares

An additional advantage it that my little Moto is rather sturdy...when lord voldemom threw my phone out a second story window my phone didn't even scratch...(long story)