5 ms·

>...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.
    - wutbrodo 8y ago
      > being hassled at the border has always been a risk. Before it was terrorism, it was drugs, or just the change in culture. Right, I'm aware of this, and borders in general suck. I've had a fair few bizarre experiences at borders, some of them funny (like the Lebanese border guard who insisted on speaking Spanish to me) and some quite shitty (lookin at you, Israel). But to me, the above story is quite the outlier in terms of sheer hostility, from a country that I didn't think of as being particularly draconian at the border.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      > 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. Normally you can get two/three passports for that reason.
      - angry_octet 8y ago
        Really? I've not heard of countries issuing multiple simultaneous passports unless you have official or diplomatic status. Previously the Israelis stapled a piece of paper with a stamp on it, you take it out before you go to the GCC. Now its not even stapled. (They photograph your passport & stamp pages though...) https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/9747/ https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/974...
        blattimwind 8y ago
        > Really? I've not heard of countries issuing multiple simultaneous passports unless you have official or diplomatic status. Germany and I think most other EU countries with heavy industries absolutely do this, because it is necessary to do business in the middle east.
        angry_octet 8y ago
        What a practical solution. Deeper googling shows that this is possible for many countries (DE, AU, US, UK, FR at least), often called a concurrent or second passport. I wish I had known about this when various countries had been taking their sweet time about getting me a visa. https://pointstobemade.boardingarea.com/2018/02/22/getting-a-second-uk-passport/ https://pointstobemade.boardingarea.com/2018/02/22/getting-a... https://www.passports.gov.au/using-your-passport/concurrent-passports https://www.passports.gov.au/using-your-passport/concurrent-... https://photos.state.gov/libraries/france/45994/pdf/second.pdf https://photos.state.gov/libraries/france/45994/pdf/second.p... https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21517 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21517 https://www.rapidevisa.fr/actualites/174-comment-obtenir-officiellement-un-deuxieme-passeport.html https://www.rapidevisa.fr/actualites/174-comment-obtenir-off... Learn something new on HN every day :-)
  - iforgotpassword 8y ago
    Your home country is pretty good at this stuff too. Had this happen to me in 2016 on a business trip, but I just had my work phone and laptop with me and didn't care too much. What was annoying were the comments I got when stating I'm a software dev and visiting for work (along the lines of "we have our own capable people so we don't need you taking our jobs"). I was at that time working for a US company's branch in Switzerland. Not too fond of visiting again. Luckily I'm not working there anymore.
    - wutbrodo 8y ago
      > Your home country is pretty good at this stuff too. Oh yea, I have no illusions about this, and I met more than a few people during my travels who deprioritize going to the US for tourism because of this, in the same way I'm discussing Canada here. I didn't imagine that Canada was the _only_ country that did stuff like this, since I assumed we (and a couple other famous outliers like Israel) had similar stories. I was just wondering how common it was overall.
  - davidzweig 8y ago
    I've been to probably 60-70 countries on a UK passport. The only unpleasant border experiences I recall were in Israel, UK, France, and the USA. (Rude and intrusive).
    - Symbiote 8y ago
      What unpleasantness can happen to a British citizen at the UK border? (Or France, for that matter.)
ttty 8y ago
Buy new phone, put random things there to look real and give them that phone instead. Or wipe your phone, restore backup from cloud on arrival.
- macintux 8y ago
  > Or wipe your phone, restore backup from cloud on arrival. I'd wager the agents could legitimately (for some deranged, modern usage of that word) require that you either surrender your phone anyway or restore it immediately so they can review what you're clearly planning on bringing into the country.
  - cf_ 8y ago
    By that logic they could demand live access to your bank/social/email account as well. It's one thing to search things that you physically bring into the country - this article was talking about NZ only search the phones in "Airplane" mode.
    - macintux 8y ago
      True, the way this law is apparently defined I think you could get away with it, but the distinction between what's on the device and what's in the cloud is getting fuzzier all the time, and I'm not sure other countries would feel so constrained.
  - ttty 8y ago
    Restore to what account? I have so many, I doubt they are aware of all my accounts
    - NullPrefix 8y ago
      >Please provide a finite list of your accounts. Lying by omission is still lying. It's easy to come up with new stasi operation techniques if there are no civil liberties.
      - 8y ago

Border agents are terrible vanguards of a country tourism board.

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.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    > being hassled at the border has always been a risk. Before it was terrorism, it was drugs, or just the change in culture. Right, I'm aware of this, and borders in general suck. I've had a fair few bizarre experiences at borders, some of them funny (like the Lebanese border guard who insisted on speaking Spanish to me) and some quite shitty (lookin at you, Israel). But to me, the above story is quite the outlier in terms of sheer hostility, from a country that I didn't think of as being particularly draconian at the border.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    > 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. Normally you can get two/three passports for that reason.
    - angry_octet 8y ago
      Really? I've not heard of countries issuing multiple simultaneous passports unless you have official or diplomatic status. Previously the Israelis stapled a piece of paper with a stamp on it, you take it out before you go to the GCC. Now its not even stapled. (They photograph your passport & stamp pages though...) https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/9747/ https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/974...
      - blattimwind 8y ago
        > Really? I've not heard of countries issuing multiple simultaneous passports unless you have official or diplomatic status. Germany and I think most other EU countries with heavy industries absolutely do this, because it is necessary to do business in the middle east.
        angry_octet 8y ago
        What a practical solution. Deeper googling shows that this is possible for many countries (DE, AU, US, UK, FR at least), often called a concurrent or second passport. I wish I had known about this when various countries had been taking their sweet time about getting me a visa. https://pointstobemade.boardingarea.com/2018/02/22/getting-a-second-uk-passport/ https://pointstobemade.boardingarea.com/2018/02/22/getting-a... https://www.passports.gov.au/using-your-passport/concurrent-passports https://www.passports.gov.au/using-your-passport/concurrent-... https://photos.state.gov/libraries/france/45994/pdf/second.pdf https://photos.state.gov/libraries/france/45994/pdf/second.p... https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21517 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21517 https://www.rapidevisa.fr/actualites/174-comment-obtenir-officiellement-un-deuxieme-passeport.html https://www.rapidevisa.fr/actualites/174-comment-obtenir-off... Learn something new on HN every day :-)
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  Your home country is pretty good at this stuff too. Had this happen to me in 2016 on a business trip, but I just had my work phone and laptop with me and didn't care too much. What was annoying were the comments I got when stating I'm a software dev and visiting for work (along the lines of "we have our own capable people so we don't need you taking our jobs"). I was at that time working for a US company's branch in Switzerland. Not too fond of visiting again. Luckily I'm not working there anymore.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    > Your home country is pretty good at this stuff too. Oh yea, I have no illusions about this, and I met more than a few people during my travels who deprioritize going to the US for tourism because of this, in the same way I'm discussing Canada here. I didn't imagine that Canada was the _only_ country that did stuff like this, since I assumed we (and a couple other famous outliers like Israel) had similar stories. I was just wondering how common it was overall.
- davidzweig 8y ago
  I've been to probably 60-70 countries on a UK passport. The only unpleasant border experiences I recall were in Israel, UK, France, and the USA. (Rude and intrusive).
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    What unpleasantness can happen to a British citizen at the UK border? (Or France, for that matter.)

ttty 8y ago

Buy new phone, put random things there to look real and give them that phone instead. Or wipe your phone, restore backup from cloud on arrival.

macintux 8y ago
> Or wipe your phone, restore backup from cloud on arrival. I'd wager the agents could legitimately (for some deranged, modern usage of that word) require that you either surrender your phone anyway or restore it immediately so they can review what you're clearly planning on bringing into the country.
- cf_ 8y ago
  By that logic they could demand live access to your bank/social/email account as well. It's one thing to search things that you physically bring into the country - this article was talking about NZ only search the phones in "Airplane" mode.
  - macintux 8y ago
    True, the way this law is apparently defined I think you could get away with it, but the distinction between what's on the device and what's in the cloud is getting fuzzier all the time, and I'm not sure other countries would feel so constrained.
- ttty 8y ago
  Restore to what account? I have so many, I doubt they are aware of all my accounts
  - NullPrefix 8y ago
    >Please provide a finite list of your accounts. Lying by omission is still lying. It's easy to come up with new stasi operation techniques if there are no civil liberties.
    - 8y ago