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This happened to me driving from the US into Canada with my significant other on a short vacation. After some routine questioning, the agent asked for our phone

This happened to me driving from the US into Canada with my significant other on a short vacation. After some routine questioning, the agent asked for our phones and passwords. Naturally, I hesitated and wanted to know why he needed to go through our phones. He didn't give a reason, but said if I refuse they'd hold us until their forensics team cracks the phone password anyway. I wanted to make a bigger deal about it but didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. They took the phones in the back for about 45 min, who knows what information they downloaded or uploaded during that time, then gave it back to me while interrogating me like I was a drug lord because there was a text message from a year earlier about a friend's girlfriend doing cocaine. It was extremely unnerving, they went through all our private pictures, messages, dropbox files, email, notes, dating apps, etc. It ruined the vacation for me, and I've stopped visiting Canada because of how disgusted I felt afterwards. I know Canada is not the only country doing that, so from now on when I cross an international border I wipe my phone (after backing up) and just have a few pictures and messages on there. Incidentally though, that's the only time it's happened to me.

3pt14159 8y ago
There are bad agents everywhere. Just a numbers game after a while. I've done that border tons of times with no issue. Though, I will say that I take protective measures before I travel anyway. It's pretty easy to log out of an iCloud account and there is nothing on my computer that I care about that isn't backed up somewhere.
- EugeneOZ 8y ago
  It's not bad agents, it's bad laws.
  - komali2 8y ago
    It's both. See above about the agent commenting on a girl's tinder messages. They also are horribly racist to non English speakers.
  - SirYandi 8y ago
    It's a mix of both, like most things.
NullPrefix 8y ago
>...didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. >It ruined the vacation for me... So what was the lesson?
- komali2 8y ago
  Border agents are terrible vanguards of a country tourism board.
- rhacker 8y ago
  Is there one? Are you looking for: * Don't leave the country? * Refuse and have the phone cracked anyway? * Refuse letting go of the phone and get arrested?
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. Does anyone have a sense of how common this draconian approach is? I have a US passport and have been to about 25 countries on six continents and have never experienced this, but borders see such mind bogglingly high numbers pass through that I wouldn't say I have a robust set of data points.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. The more you travel, the more common it is. The phone thing is somewhat new, ever since certain companies started selling devices to governments that let them crack, examine, and archive your phone. But being hassled at the border has always been a risk. Before it was terrorism, it was drugs, or just the change in culture. I've had problems getting into Japan because of my heart medication. I've read that if you have stamps in your passport from certain Middle Eastern countries, you can't get into some other Middle Eastern countries. I've also read quite extensively recently that it's become very difficult for Indians to get into Georgia. Entire families, and even planeloads of people have been turned away, if you believe what you read on TripAdvisor.
patmcc 8y ago
>>It ruined the vacation for me, and I've stopped visiting Canada because of how disgusted I felt afterwards. I don't blame you for this at all, but I will say this is bi-directional; as a Canadian, when I travel to the US, I get the same bullshit questioning and phone snooping on occasion. The current controversy on border crossing is that, despite marijuana becoming legalized in Canada shortly, if you admit to smoking it when asked, you'll be barred from entering the US. So seems to me that both countries just love love love the opportunity to flex their power against people who have no recourse. If you want to see what cops do when they don't have to follow any rules on unreasonable searches, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, etc. then just look to our borders. I wish our governments could get together and sort this junk out, but that would mean both agencies would have to lose some of their power to "secure the border" so it'll never go anywhere.
- ALittleLight 8y ago
  Now I want to go to Canada repeatedly just to get them to try to decrypt my phone. "You know, I don't recall the darn password. I'll just go have a seat while you do your thing." I'd be interested to know if they could!
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    Best case result of this is you sitting there for several hours, and then them deciding to seize the device anyways.
  - flycaliguy 8y ago
    It might be fun to include some variety . Hotel reservations all stored on Minidisc. Family photos on zip drives.
    - Nition 8y ago
      A 5¼ inch floppy disk has gotta be pretty good "security" at the border in 2018.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
dliff 8y ago
This happened to my friend in Canada (who was born in and retains citizenship in Canada). They also told use they would use a spectrogram to determine if we had cannabis with us. I think it was an attempt to scare us, assuming we had very little knowledge. Turns out, their definition of spectrogram is tearing our entire car apart. Mostly the interior panels. Thought that was pretty interesting :-)
marssaxman 8y ago
I had this happen at the Canadian border once, and of course I never used that phone again; who knows what they did to it.
elhudy 8y ago
I drove from Detroit to Toronto via Windsor, and was subjected to a vehicle search and questioning. I pulled up my hotel reservation at the agents' request, and he snatched my phone out of my hands and started going through my emails. He couldn't wrap his head around why anyone would want to take a roadtrip to toronto for an extended weekend, other than to run drugs. I've also been interrogated when flying into Canada for work. Canadian border security is notorious for this kind of stuff.
- jrace 8y ago
  Try being a Canadian and going the other way!
  - refurb 8y ago
    As a Canadian who has gone both ways dozens of times, I’ve definitely gotten a much tougher treatment by the Canadian side. I had to bite my tongue to not say “I’m a citizen, you have to let me in.”
    - garyfirestorm 8y ago
      this comment made me sad. i am a south asian national, i do have a canadian tourist visa and was hoping to go watch F1 in 2019 in Montreal. reading all of this is probably going to change that plan :/
      - ardoi 8y ago
        I'm a Canadian permanent resident and the dozen or so times I've crossed the border into Canada I've never had a negative experience. I've always found the Canadian border agents to be polite and courteous. I cannot say the same for their US counterparts. Not doubting the negative experiences described above just that my personal random sample has been different.
        barrow-rider 8y ago
_jcwu 8y ago
If you watch the show "Border Security: Canada's Front Line" you will see how often this is the norm. It's on Netflix as well. I really think these are dangerous times and for some reason I only ever expected this from the US but never from Canada or New Zealand.
- xupybd 8y ago
  I suspect it has something to do with the five eyes network. They all adopt similar security measures.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Exactly. Why do you think Canada is exempt from a number of US border requirements (e.g. ETSA). It’s not out of the US goodness of their heart. It’s because the US and Canada freely share information.
- standerman 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
zodiakzz 8y ago
How can they possibly "crack" the phone password? Won't the phone get locked after a few failed tries?
- falcolas 8y ago
  It's border patrol speak for "keep your device indefinitely while refusing you entry and/or detaining you indefinitely". By attempting to cross the border you give them the right to do any of that. Isn't border patrol (US, Canadian, pick a country, I'll wait) wonderful?
tobib 8y ago
> He didn't give a reason, but said if I refuse they'd hold us until their forensics team cracks the phone password anyway Is that realistic? Would they actually be able to "crack" the encryption of a modern iPhone or Android phone?
- Skrillex 8y ago
  I too am incredulous of that claim. Most likely it was meant to scare the uninformed (and also the informed, since they do not want to waste the time).
- Kadin 8y ago
  Depends on when it happened. There have been times when there have been workable exploits that have been used by law enforcement agencies. There's a fairly high-profile Israeli company that specializes in finding or buying zero-day exploits and reselling them in script-kiddie form to law enforcement agencies at high prices.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    I wonder if random power tripping border security goons get to use zero day exploits just for kicks?
    - paranoidrobot 8y ago
      It'll be built into the forensic analysis software they're using.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
      The exploits come in a nice box (physical box with phone connectors), and sadly, the answer could be yes at the bigger checkpoints (depends on whether they shelled out $$$ for the box).
    - angry_octet 8y ago
      Odays often have a finite lifetime. Once you have bought an exploit you may as well use it. Cellebrite and Greycode produce reliable and surprisingly functional gear. Apple and other vendors obviously try to discover what exploit is being used, and exploit vendors try to hide the technique. I suspect this is why sometimes the device is never returned. Generally I wouldn't characterise the customs people as goons. Like most LE jobs they see some nasty stuff. I'm talking paedophilia and violent pornography. They also deal with some really sketchy characters and if you trigger that detection you are definitely getting extra scrutiny.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
edraferi 8y ago
You have no right to privacy when crossing an international border. The solution is simple - don't carry any data you don't want to give to the country you're entering.
- ISL 8y ago
  There should be for citizens of the United States re-entering the United States. It says so in the Constitution. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." That is not how it is in practice, but the Constitution is quite clear on the subject.
  - otterley 8y ago
    Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice.) The power to conduct border searches, even without probable cause, is considered well-settled under the law as not contravening the Constitution. See, e.g., U.S. v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977).
    - ISL 8y ago
      Entirely agreed that precedent accords Customs their present powers. From the case's dissent: "If the Government is allowed to exercise he power it claims, the door will be open to the wholesale, secret examination of all incoming international letter mail. No notice would be necessary either before or after the search." Viewed from a post-Snowden perspective, it sounds predictive. Segregation, too, was once considered well-settled. That didn't make it right nor consistent with the Constitution, which has not changed its language on the subject since 1868.
- strictnein 8y ago
  This is 100% the right solution, and there's a pretty easy way to accomplish this, with iPhones at least: Back up to iCloud Wipe your phone Cross the border Restore from iCloud And yes, this may fail visiting China, because who knows what the Great Firewall will block.
mito88 8y ago
:(
dvcrn 8y ago
This is terrifying, I had no idea this kind of practice is already in place! In Asia, so far I never got asked for my phone and equipment, but now I wonder what the best way is to handle this. Killing my phone and restoring after entering is one way, but for a laptop that's more annoying unless you live in the cloud. Might still be a good practice to have your devices in a state where you could easily wipe and restore them in no time. If I randomly got asked to do that, to be honest, I would rather turn around and go back instead of taking the risk that they maybe find something out of my past that can get me intro troubles.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Don't travel with your primary devices or any devices with sensitive or even personal information on them - to any country ruled by totalitarian regimes, like China, Iran, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, or the US... :sigh:
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    Or the UK, and probably a long list of other countries.
    - bigiain 8y ago
      Five eyes, nine eyes, fourteen eyes. Most probably 195 eyes, although perhaps they'll be split 3 or 4 ways instead of one unilateral bloc of pervasive government overreach consisting of every country on earth...
  - peterashford 8y ago
    New Zealand is a "Totalitarian Regime"? Thoise words must mean something different here
    - bigiain 8y ago
      Sure, somewhat hyperbolic, but a reference to this new law that went into force this week and the parent post: "Travellers who refuse to hand over their phone or laptop passwords to Customs officials can now be slapped with a $5000 fine." https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367642/travellers-refusing-digital-search-now-face-5000-customs-fine https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367642/travellers-re... I'm gonna have to treat that as a "hostile border", and treat it the same as the Chinese border...
sorenjan 8y ago
Android supports multiple user profiles on the same device. Maybe being logged in to a stripped down dummy account when crossing the border would be enough? I'm guessing the storage is encrypted on a per user basis, so as long as the customs officer isn't aware of it it even a device clone should leave your actual data safe.
- paranoidrobot 8y ago
  If it's a random officer on the side of the road, then this might work. If it's at a border crossing, assume that they're using forensic tools to dump your entire phone, which will bypass any user-profile shenanigans you might try to do.
stmfreak 8y ago
This would cause me to turn around at the border and cancel my reservations. I won’t be going to New Zealand either. And yes, I am aware the USA treats incoming visitors just as badly.

3pt14159 8y ago

There are bad agents everywhere. Just a numbers game after a while. I've done that border tons of times with no issue. Though, I will say that I take protective measures before I travel anyway. It's pretty easy to log out of an iCloud account and there is nothing on my computer that I care about that isn't backed up somewhere.

EugeneOZ 8y ago
It's not bad agents, it's bad laws.
- komali2 8y ago
  It's both. See above about the agent commenting on a girl's tinder messages. They also are horribly racist to non English speakers.
- SirYandi 8y ago
  It's a mix of both, like most things.

NullPrefix 8y ago

>...didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. >It ruined the vacation for me... So what was the lesson?

komali2 8y ago
Border agents are terrible vanguards of a country tourism board.
rhacker 8y ago
Is there one? Are you looking for: * Don't leave the country? * Refuse and have the phone cracked anyway? * Refuse letting go of the phone and get arrested?
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. Does anyone have a sense of how common this draconian approach is? I have a US passport and have been to about 25 countries on six continents and have never experienced this, but borders see such mind bogglingly high numbers pass through that I wouldn't say I have a robust set of data points.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. The more you travel, the more common it is. The phone thing is somewhat new, ever since certain companies started selling devices to governments that let them crack, examine, and archive your phone. But being hassled at the border has always been a risk. Before it was terrorism, it was drugs, or just the change in culture. I've had problems getting into Japan because of my heart medication. I've read that if you have stamps in your passport from certain Middle Eastern countries, you can't get into some other Middle Eastern countries. I've also read quite extensively recently that it's become very difficult for Indians to get into Georgia. Entire families, and even planeloads of people have been turned away, if you believe what you read on TripAdvisor.

patmcc 8y ago

>>It ruined the vacation for me, and I've stopped visiting Canada because of how disgusted I felt afterwards. I don't blame you for this at all, but I will say this is bi-directional; as a Canadian, when I travel to the US, I get the same bullshit questioning and phone snooping on occasion. The current controversy on border crossing is that, despite marijuana becoming legalized in Canada shortly, if you admit to smoking it when asked, you'll be barred from entering the US. So seems to me that both countries just love love love the opportunity to flex their power against people who have no recourse. If you want to see what cops do when they don't have to follow any rules on unreasonable searches, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, etc. then just look to our borders. I wish our governments could get together and sort this junk out, but that would mean both agencies would have to lose some of their power to "secure the border" so it'll never go anywhere.

ALittleLight 8y ago
Now I want to go to Canada repeatedly just to get them to try to decrypt my phone. "You know, I don't recall the darn password. I'll just go have a seat while you do your thing." I'd be interested to know if they could!
- wool_gather 8y ago
  Best case result of this is you sitting there for several hours, and then them deciding to seize the device anyways.
- flycaliguy 8y ago
  It might be fun to include some variety . Hotel reservations all stored on Minidisc. Family photos on zip drives.
  - Nition 8y ago
    A 5¼ inch floppy disk has gotta be pretty good "security" at the border in 2018.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago

dliff 8y ago

This happened to my friend in Canada (who was born in and retains citizenship in Canada). They also told use they would use a spectrogram to determine if we had cannabis with us. I think it was an attempt to scare us, assuming we had very little knowledge. Turns out, their definition of spectrogram is tearing our entire car apart. Mostly the interior panels. Thought that was pretty interesting :-)

marssaxman 8y ago

I had this happen at the Canadian border once, and of course I never used that phone again; who knows what they did to it.

elhudy 8y ago

I drove from Detroit to Toronto via Windsor, and was subjected to a vehicle search and questioning. I pulled up my hotel reservation at the agents' request, and he snatched my phone out of my hands and started going through my emails. He couldn't wrap his head around why anyone would want to take a roadtrip to toronto for an extended weekend, other than to run drugs. I've also been interrogated when flying into Canada for work. Canadian border security is notorious for this kind of stuff.

jrace 8y ago
Try being a Canadian and going the other way!
- refurb 8y ago
  As a Canadian who has gone both ways dozens of times, I’ve definitely gotten a much tougher treatment by the Canadian side. I had to bite my tongue to not say “I’m a citizen, you have to let me in.”
  - garyfirestorm 8y ago
    this comment made me sad. i am a south asian national, i do have a canadian tourist visa and was hoping to go watch F1 in 2019 in Montreal. reading all of this is probably going to change that plan :/
    - ardoi 8y ago
      I'm a Canadian permanent resident and the dozen or so times I've crossed the border into Canada I've never had a negative experience. I've always found the Canadian border agents to be polite and courteous. I cannot say the same for their US counterparts. Not doubting the negative experiences described above just that my personal random sample has been different.
      - barrow-rider 8y ago

_jcwu 8y ago

If you watch the show "Border Security: Canada's Front Line" you will see how often this is the norm. It's on Netflix as well. I really think these are dangerous times and for some reason I only ever expected this from the US but never from Canada or New Zealand.

xupybd 8y ago
I suspect it has something to do with the five eyes network. They all adopt similar security measures.
- refurb 8y ago
  Exactly. Why do you think Canada is exempt from a number of US border requirements (e.g. ETSA). It’s not out of the US goodness of their heart. It’s because the US and Canada freely share information.
standerman 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

zodiakzz 8y ago

How can they possibly "crack" the phone password? Won't the phone get locked after a few failed tries?

falcolas 8y ago
It's border patrol speak for "keep your device indefinitely while refusing you entry and/or detaining you indefinitely". By attempting to cross the border you give them the right to do any of that. Isn't border patrol (US, Canadian, pick a country, I'll wait) wonderful?

tobib 8y ago

> He didn't give a reason, but said if I refuse they'd hold us until their forensics team cracks the phone password anyway Is that realistic? Would they actually be able to "crack" the encryption of a modern iPhone or Android phone?

Skrillex 8y ago
I too am incredulous of that claim. Most likely it was meant to scare the uninformed (and also the informed, since they do not want to waste the time).
Kadin 8y ago
Depends on when it happened. There have been times when there have been workable exploits that have been used by law enforcement agencies. There's a fairly high-profile Israeli company that specializes in finding or buying zero-day exploits and reselling them in script-kiddie form to law enforcement agencies at high prices.
- bigiain 8y ago
  I wonder if random power tripping border security goons get to use zero day exploits just for kicks?
  - paranoidrobot 8y ago
    It'll be built into the forensic analysis software they're using.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
    The exploits come in a nice box (physical box with phone connectors), and sadly, the answer could be yes at the bigger checkpoints (depends on whether they shelled out $$$ for the box).
  - angry_octet 8y ago
    Odays often have a finite lifetime. Once you have bought an exploit you may as well use it. Cellebrite and Greycode produce reliable and surprisingly functional gear. Apple and other vendors obviously try to discover what exploit is being used, and exploit vendors try to hide the technique. I suspect this is why sometimes the device is never returned. Generally I wouldn't characterise the customs people as goons. Like most LE jobs they see some nasty stuff. I'm talking paedophilia and violent pornography. They also deal with some really sketchy characters and if you trigger that detection you are definitely getting extra scrutiny.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

edraferi 8y ago

You have no right to privacy when crossing an international border. The solution is simple - don't carry any data you don't want to give to the country you're entering.

ISL 8y ago
There should be for citizens of the United States re-entering the United States. It says so in the Constitution. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." That is not how it is in practice, but the Constitution is quite clear on the subject.
- otterley 8y ago
  Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice.) The power to conduct border searches, even without probable cause, is considered well-settled under the law as not contravening the Constitution. See, e.g., U.S. v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977).
  - ISL 8y ago
    Entirely agreed that precedent accords Customs their present powers. From the case's dissent: "If the Government is allowed to exercise he power it claims, the door will be open to the wholesale, secret examination of all incoming international letter mail. No notice would be necessary either before or after the search." Viewed from a post-Snowden perspective, it sounds predictive. Segregation, too, was once considered well-settled. That didn't make it right nor consistent with the Constitution, which has not changed its language on the subject since 1868.
strictnein 8y ago
This is 100% the right solution, and there's a pretty easy way to accomplish this, with iPhones at least: Back up to iCloud Wipe your phone Cross the border Restore from iCloud And yes, this may fail visiting China, because who knows what the Great Firewall will block.

mito88 8y ago

dvcrn 8y ago

This is terrifying, I had no idea this kind of practice is already in place! In Asia, so far I never got asked for my phone and equipment, but now I wonder what the best way is to handle this. Killing my phone and restoring after entering is one way, but for a laptop that's more annoying unless you live in the cloud. Might still be a good practice to have your devices in a state where you could easily wipe and restore them in no time. If I randomly got asked to do that, to be honest, I would rather turn around and go back instead of taking the risk that they maybe find something out of my past that can get me intro troubles.

bigiain 8y ago
Don't travel with your primary devices or any devices with sensitive or even personal information on them - to any country ruled by totalitarian regimes, like China, Iran, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, or the US... :sigh:
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  Or the UK, and probably a long list of other countries.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Five eyes, nine eyes, fourteen eyes. Most probably 195 eyes, although perhaps they'll be split 3 or 4 ways instead of one unilateral bloc of pervasive government overreach consisting of every country on earth...
- peterashford 8y ago
  New Zealand is a "Totalitarian Regime"? Thoise words must mean something different here
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Sure, somewhat hyperbolic, but a reference to this new law that went into force this week and the parent post: "Travellers who refuse to hand over their phone or laptop passwords to Customs officials can now be slapped with a $5000 fine." https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367642/travellers-refusing-digital-search-now-face-5000-customs-fine https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367642/travellers-re... I'm gonna have to treat that as a "hostile border", and treat it the same as the Chinese border...

sorenjan 8y ago

Android supports multiple user profiles on the same device. Maybe being logged in to a stripped down dummy account when crossing the border would be enough? I'm guessing the storage is encrypted on a per user basis, so as long as the customs officer isn't aware of it it even a device clone should leave your actual data safe.

paranoidrobot 8y ago
If it's a random officer on the side of the road, then this might work. If it's at a border crossing, assume that they're using forensic tools to dump your entire phone, which will bypass any user-profile shenanigans you might try to do.

stmfreak 8y ago

This would cause me to turn around at the border and cancel my reservations. I won’t be going to New Zealand either. And yes, I am aware the USA treats incoming visitors just as badly.