When You Cross the U.S. Border, it’s for Officials to Seize Your Data
At the Sole Discretion of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Officer, any Device can be Searched and its Contents Read.
Image by Emoji One via Wikimedia Commons
An interesting article written by Alex Richardson and posted on motherboard.vice.com, highlights the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Privacy Impact Assessment for the Border Searches of Electronic Devices. Unless you are a foreign or domestic official with diplomatic immunity, when you cross the U.S. Border you have no right to Electronic Privacy and it’s easy for officials to seize your data. At the sole discretion of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Officer, any device can be searched and its contents read. With an approval of a supervisor, the device can seized, its contents copied in full, or both.
