Amid the recent news of a U.S. citizen being asked to turn over his phone to authorities at a border crossing, Sophia Cope of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has tips on digital civil liberties.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250412154222/https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5359447/what-are-your-rights-if-border-authorities-ask-for-your-phone

Related, “Attorney representing a student protester detained by federal immigration agents”

When a man in Michigan was heading home on Sunday from a family vacation in the Caribbean, he was stopped in the Detroit Airport. Federal officers, border agents, detained him, interrogated him and pressured him to hand over his cellphone. The man is a U.S. citizen. He’s a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, and among his clients is an activist who has been charged in connection to a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Michigan.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250410185452/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5357455

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 days ago

    Just delete the encryption key? It’s unlikely advanced and expensive forensics will be used at boarder crossings.

    • solrize@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 days ago

      I wouldn’t assume things about what they have or don’t have at the border. They could also send your phone to a lab somewhere and return it to you after a few months with who knows what spyware installed, after which you can never trust it again. Just buy a cheap spare phone and leave your real one at home. There are some surprisingly good deals on qvc.com if you search for “tracfone”. I might get one myself.

      • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 days ago

        That’s not happening to most people. If they are that interested in you they are already hacking your accounts.

        • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          We don’t have evidence that it’s happening to most people, but that’s not to say it’s not happening. We didn’t have evidence the NSA was collecting basically all traffic from Americans, until we did. And even if it’s encrypted, they can always save it and decrypt it later if a weakness is found in the algorithm, hardware is fast enough to crack it in a reasonable time, or quantum computing pans out.

        • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
          2·
          3 days ago

          Sure, but it also solves the second problem, where they just confiscate your phone and don’t return it. Do you want them to take the phone you use to access your entire digital life, or your $50 burner?