Safeguard Your Private Data At The U.S. Border

On January 27th, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that immediately changed U.S. immigration and travel policies as they related to seven majority-Muslim countries.

- Max Eddy

The change sparked protests that touched the technology industry, so much so that over 100 companies eventually co-signed a document objecting to the order. A revised version of the order, intended to be on firmer legal standing than the first, was signed on March 6th and went into effect on March 16th. As of this writing, the second order has been suspended by actions from federal courts.

Amid stories of visa holders, green card carriers, and even United States citizens being detained at the U.S. border were also reports that some people’s phones were searched by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents. In some cases, it seems the CBP compelled travellers to unlock their phones as part of a search. (We reached out to the agency for comment but did not receive a response.)

Take a moment to consider your smartphone. It contains all of your text messages, a log of all your calls, and many—if not all—of the photos you’ve taken. Your contacts list and call log also show who you’ve been communicating with—a critical piece of information in counter-terrorism investigations.

Consider also, the apps on your phone that don’t require additional authentication. Once your phone is unlocked, anyone could browse the entirety of your Facebook profile and read all your messages on encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp or Signal. It’s a major security risk.

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney with the ACLU speech privacy and technology project, said that CBP agents have two tactics when performing searches of digital devices. [Note that this author is an ACLU donor.] “In some circumstances, they’ll do a cursory search and stand there and thumb through or click through the device to see whether they might look through emails, and pictures and contacts, just looking for anything suspicious,” he said.