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It didn’t before? I remember crossing the border from Canada to the US after 9/11 but before you had to have a passport (a driver’s license and birth certificat
by karlkatzke 8y ago
It didn’t before? I remember crossing the border from Canada to the US after 9/11 but before you had to have a passport (a driver’s license and birth certificate were sufficient) and I was asked a series of questions. The questions included a lot of family stuff, like “where does your father work?” but they also included “what is your girlfriend’s birthday,” which I found odd because I was dating a lot and didn’t have a steady girlfriend at the time. I’m not bragging here, but it took me three name/birthday combinations to guess the one the border agent had on his terminal screen.
- ams6110 8y agoThose kinds of questions can also be used just to let the border agent evaluate how you answer them. If they sense evasiveness, they may think you are worthy of further screening or searches.
- tonto 8y agoThis is the most likely scenario I think. Border agents will ask very probing questions to try and uncover contradictions in your story
- GordonS 8y agoI remember going through the border at Houston airport several years ago, travelling with some work colleagues, one of which was an 18 year old girl who had never been on a plane before. The border guy was one of the 'little Hitler' types, and gave her a series of rapid fire personal questions about her relationship with her boyfriend back home - his overbearing demeanour and personal nature of the question were completely inappropriate, and my colleague ended up confused, scared and in tears. I travelled to the US several times afterwards, landing in either Houston or Atlanta, and the border crossing was always a horrible experience. Thankfully I haven't had to go for years now. Worth noting that I've travelled to many countries, spread over every continent, and never experienced border guards as nasty and vicious as they are in the US - if anything, they are generally friendly elsewhere!
- mirimir 8y agoThe girlfriend’s birthday question surprises me. Did they first ask if you had a girlfriend? Otherwise, how would they know? It's hard to imagine that they'd have such detailed profiles for most Americans, let alone Canadians.
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoWhile I certainly wouldn't make a bet at even odds on border agents having that information immediately readily available at time.now(), it doesn't sound particularly difficult to imagine how they COULD do it. Cell phone location data comes to mind.
- mirimir 8y agoSure, but I got from the comment that this was some years ago. I agree that it's not hard to imagine how. I'm just surprised. I guess that I'm just not paranoid enough. Hard to believe, I know.
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoHaha, fair enough, I was probably taking your wording a bit too literally.
- saagarjha 8y agoHow would they even know you had a girlfriend? That's not something publicly available like a marriage record would be.
- sgwae 8y agoCouldn't uber tell if you had one night stands? Wasn't there a telecom tracking service that was until recently open to the public, where you could get locations of phones just by the number? If there was some geolocation between two devices registered to accounts owned by opposite sexes of similar age spending time together, overnight & with time, then you have the data you need?
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoYes.
- karlkatzke 8y agoThis was in the early 2000s. I’m not sure how effective pervasive cell phone data gathering was yet for people who weren’t customarily targets of surveillance. Maybe I was a test case since I was doing a lot of match.com type dating.
- user5994461 8y agoWhat if we don't know her birthday?