Border Insecurity

Your rights are significantly reduced when crossing the border, even if you’re entering your own country. And sadly, there’s not a lot you can do about it. We need to fix that. (NOTE: I traveled recently and have some added some important notes for this story here.)

Hundred Mile Minefield

This can be an extremely sensitive and consequential subject and it’s fraught with thorny and nebulous legal issues. That’s honestly the root of the problem here. But know that I am not a lawyer and I do not give legal advice. While I will provide you with links to legal advice from real lawyers, keep in mind that the advice will be US-centric and that your rights can vary wildly depending on what country you’re from, what country you’re entering, and what your citizenship status is related to the country you’re entering. It’s frankly a legal minefield.

And that minefield is more dangerous then you think. As Americans, we have legal protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, established by the Fourth Amendment. However, those rights are significantly reduced at the border. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents can search your belongings, including your electronic devices, for basically any reason, without a warrant.

Furthermore, this legal minefield is wide – like, geographically. In the US, the definition of “border area” for CBP’s search powers is effectively 100 miles wide. That is, these expanded search rights can be applied up to 100 miles inside the US from the border – and that includes the coastlines. (See the map below.) Most of Americas largest cities are in this region. In fact, almost 2/3 of Americans live in this ‘border’ zone.

These Are Scary Times

All the above has been true for decades. But in recent years, there has been an increased focus on preventing terrorism and drug smuggling. You can debate whether the marked increase in our security posture is warranted (and we absolutely should have this debate), but at the end of the day, the situation is what it is: border searches are much more common and much more invasive now.

I’ve done a lot of international travel. I’ve been to 32 countries and 6 continents (so far). I recall some countries being kinda scary when I visited, either due to corruption in the government or local political unrest. I’ve been through borders where I was taken, alone, to a separate room to be questioned. I’ve had my bags fully searched – sometimes in front of me while I watched, and sometimes I just noticed that all my packed things had been rifled through when I picked them up at baggage claim.

But today it’s different. Today we carry electronic devices with full access to our entire digital lives, with a perfect digital history. Social media posts, emails, messages, files, web history, photos, videos, contact lists, bank accounts, medical portals, health trackers… and more. Which leads me to this old quote, which is attributed to Cardinal Richelieu:

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

If someone really wants to find something ‘incriminating’ and they have access to all of your information, then can easily do so. The trick, then, is to limit what they have access to – without making them angry or suspicious in the process.

So, What Can I Do?

The only foolproof solution way to avoid having your devices searched is to not have them with you – leave them at home. Of course, in the modern world, this alone will be suspicious. You could travel with a ‘dumb’ phone – they still make them. Or you could travel with a secondary phone with minimal apps installed and minimal data on them. Again, this may trigger suspicion because it’s not normal today.

I have some more definitive guides below, but I want to call out some basic tips here (which I’ve selectively pulled from those guides). It’s also important to know when to apply these tips, so I’ve broken them down accordingly. (Please see my updated story that details my actual experience at the US border recently.)

Before You Leave Home

Take these steps while you still have full control over your devices and internet access:

• Leave unneeded devices at home.
• Back up your data to an encrypted external drive or cloud storage.
• Enable full-disk encryption (e.g., FileVault on Mac, BitLocker on Windows).
• Sign out of cloud services and uninstall apps you don’t need immediately.
• Consider disabling biometric device unlocking (use PIN only).
• Store copies of key travel documents in encrypted cloud storage in case of device loss (passport, itinerary, etc.).
• Remove sensitive files and apps that aren’t necessary for your trip.
• Consider putting your phone into ‘lockdown mode’ (iOS, macOS, coming soon to Android 16?)
• Familiarize yourself with your rights (see below links).

Before You Approach the Border

Once your plane lands or you’re near a border checkpoint:

• Power down your device completely. Your device is most secure after shutting down and before you log back in.
• Stay calm, courteous, and honest – don’t lie or conceal information.
• Avoid logging in to cloud accounts or re-enabling access until you’re safely through.
• Keep devices in your carry-on, not checked luggage, to maintain control during inspections.
• Consider letting someone else (not with you) know that you’re about to go through a border inspection, including your location.

Your rights to not unlock your device are fuzzy and depend a lot on your particular circumstances. Please review the links below carefully to understand your rights and best practices should this situation arise. Know ahead of time how you plan to handle this situation if you think you may wish to resist this search.

After Crossing the Border

Once you’ve cleared customs and you’re safely in the country:

• Change passwords for any accounts you or they may have accessed during inspection.
• Restore any apps or data you temporarily removed before travel.
• Document the interaction if anything unusual occurred.
• Report any suspected rights violations to organizations like the ACLU or EFF.
• Re-enable any security tools you disabled during travel (e.g., password managers, two-factor authentication apps).
• If you contacted someone prior to crossing, let them know you’re through.

Travel Tips from the Pros

Human rights groups have lots of skilled lawyers who specialize in privacy law, who actually defend people in court, testify before lawmakers, and often help to draft legislation. Therefore, I will defer to them for legal advice. Some privacy-focused sites also have good tips. Check these guides for lots of important and helpful information:

• Know Your Rights at the airport (ACLU)
• Digital Privacy at the US Border (EFF)
• How to Enter the US With Your Digital Privacy Intact (Wired)
• How to protect your phone or computer when crossing borders (Proton blog)

We Need to Fix This

The current travel situation is untenable. Most laws around border searches did not envision smartphones and laptops with access to our entire lives, including social media platforms where we tend to overshare without considering these sorts of situations. While we need better laws around privacy, we can’t expect every single nation to adopt (and follow) reasonable privacy regulations.

Therefore we really need our device makers and online account providers to get together and create technical standards for some sort of ‘travel lockdown mode’. Some password managers actually have a travel mode that will temporarily remove some items from your password vault while you travel (1Password). There are some disk encryption routines that will actually reveal a fake vault if you give them a special password, but you’re basically lying to them, and that’s a dangerous thing to do. We need some sort of mode that actually offloads (deletes) a predetermined set of data (files, apps, etc) and then restores them later. If you have an iCloud backup, you can actually wipe your phone and then restore it – but again, that’s pretty obvious.

We need smart people to think on this and come up with a ‘travel mode’ – one that can be invoked on short notice and restored fairly easily when you’re safe again, after a fixed amount of time or in designated safe locations. We have bits and piece of this now (like Apple’s Lockdown Mode and the Theft Protection features). Maybe it could double as a ‘protest attending mode‘, too. It’ll be tricky, but we need this feature – and soon.