
New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine - petethomas
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/367642/travellers-refusing-digital-search-now-face-5000-customs-fine
======
jliptzin
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.

~~~
elhudy
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.

~~~
ppppppaul
I'm Canadian. I get searched all the time by both sides. Canadian side has
been worse for me, so far.

I really like going to other countries, their customs tend to be reasonable.
coming back home is always a nerve racking experience.

I haven't been asked for my phone yet, but have been asked for my camera.

I'm being drawn more and more to paying for online storage/sync solutions and
clearing my phone and laptop before traveling to the USA or Canada. actually
more worried about Canada.

~~~
coldacid
That's what I do. Anything that I think would cause me problems coming back
into Canada gets pushed to the cloud while I'm still out of country, then
deleted from my devices. Next, I log out/disconnect from my cloud services and
uninstall their apps. Once I've cleared customs, I take a few minutes to
reinstall and reconnect everything.

It's a hell of a lot better than dealing with the bullshit that is CBSA.

------
yholio
This is an important issue cryptographers and security minded people often
overlook: the strongest cryptography is irrelevant if it opens you to such
social harassment. What we need is practical cryptography.

I have found practical success by booting from an encrypted Linux partition
that has absolutely nothing relevant on it, with a weak password I can always
enter when requested by big guys with guns. Unbeknown to them on the same
partition there sits another encrypted volume, at some offset from the outer's
partition start. If I fail to enter the correct password for the outer
partition, Ubuntu drops into the command line of the initrd, that is equiped
with all the tools you need to mount the real, offset partition:

    
    
      cryptsetup -o 100000000 create boot /dev/sdc3
    

So instead of having a nice GUI into which you directly enter the uber-secret
password, you press enter a few times in the GUI, drop to command line, issue
a single command and only then enter the uber-secret password. A mild nuisance
in your bootup process, once you get the hang of it.

It's impossible for any court forensic team, let alone an airport goon, to
prove there is actually another partition inside the outer encrypted
partition, unless you mount common volumes and cross-contaminate. An important
caveat is to properly defragment the outer partition and fiddle with the
offset and the size of the inner partition to prevent any conflicts, then
avoid writing in the outer partition.

~~~
paradite
To be very honest, I find the methodology very similar to what drug trafficker
would do to hide their drugs. And I don't think this method will end well for
all parties either way.

If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and
criminals walk free through customs.

If customs officers somehow detects you are doing this, you risk obstructing
security measures.

~~~
jessaustin
_If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and
criminals walk free through customs._

"Illegal contents", as in what? Unflattering cartoons of the president? A
spreadsheet marked "cocaine delivery schedule"? Why is this on the alleged
criminal's phone while she's crossing the border? Has she never heard of the
internet? No real criminal could be caught by any of this buffoonery. Lots of
normal people whom the state would like to harass will be harassed, while
wasting a great deal of money, which is the point.

~~~
mito88
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/27/suspected_dark_web_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/27/suspected_dark_web_druggie_cuffed/)

one big strong and noisy facepalm...

:)

~~~
jessaustin
Haha yeah Beard Man should have left his laptop at home. Still, they must have
been pretty confident in the evidence they already had when they issued that
arrest warrant.

------
jackhack
It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform
itself into a totalitarian purgatory.

Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big
Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for
passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker
news posts, social media, etc.

I see sudden spike in the market for burner phones. ANd a long-term
opportunity for a company that can create a "burner" social media profile.

~~~
ryandrake
Factory reset and wipe your device before travel, and restore when you get to
your hotel. I’m a privacy nut and while this is a disturbing trend there exist
straightforward work arounds.

EDIT: I do this all the time and it’s not even remotely difficult or a big
deal.

~~~
maxxxxx
How do you do this with an Android device without spending hours restoring it?

~~~
tokyodude
Or even iOS. Just downloading all the apps takes many hours on a fast
connection. Restoring 2FA is also a PITA

~~~
ryandrake
I consider a few hours restoring from a backup while I sleep to be a pretty
small price. To some people this might be a huge inconvenience, I suppose. I
mean, think about it: Hours without access to Instagram. HOURS!!

~~~
tokyodude
When I arrive at the airport I use my phone for maps, my travel info, my
contacts, my reservations, busses, trains, taxis, uber, messages with people
I'm coordinating with, my travel notes, etc...

Or are you suggesting I should camp out in the airport for a few hours to
restore my phone before I can figure out where I'm going and get ahold of my
contacts?

Oh let me guess. Your solution so to print those contacts and maps (oh, no GPS
to figure out where I am on that map) and use a pay phone (because I still
need to re-install the apps I'd normally be using to contact people). Heck, I
don't actually have phone numbers for > 90% of my friends. I just have them on
Facebook, Line, WhatsApp. The only people I have phone numbers for are for
people who've been friends longer than about 15 years, in other words before
messaging

~~~
ryandrake
Maybe I’m just too old or unimaginative, but none of these objections seem
like serious showstoppers to me. This is straying far from the original topic
but now I’m curious: How would you survive if you were to accidentally lose
your phone while traveling, or if it got stolen? One can (and should) be
capable of being a functioning adult without a cell phone.

~~~
rand0mbits
Why is this about survival? My commute to work is 20 miles. I drive because
it's convenient, quick, and practical. I would survive without a car. I could
walk for 6+ hours, work for 8 hours (snacking while I work), and then walk
another 6+ hours back home. Or I could pitch a tent in my office parking lot
and just live out of it during the week. It would be shitty survival, but
doable, right?

It's absolutely possible traveling without a smartphone. I've done it plenty
of times before smartphones became a thing. But smartphones make it so much
easier.

------
tomp
_> "A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated
in the ways they're trying to get things across the border._

Is this the new "think of the children"? The reasoning seems to be, criminals
would rather carry their "digital crime-thingys" across the border saved on
their phones, than upload it (encrypted) somewhere on the internet... Or is NZ
planning to build a Firewall as well (better than China's)?

~~~
fghtr
No, this is the old Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

------
dawnerd
There’s a border patrol show on Netflix and they show a few phones being
searched. It’s pretty clear it’s not about terrorists and bad people having
bad files in the cloud. It’s about people coming on a tourists visa and
working. They’d find all sorts of emails talking a out a job.

I don’t think that’s a valid excuse to search devices though. If anything I
think it proves work visas need to be more accessible so people don’t have to
lie their way in for a job.

~~~
clubm8
> _There’s a border patrol show on Netflix and they show a few phones being
> searched. It’s pretty clear it’s not about terrorists and bad people having
> bad files in the cloud. It’s about people coming on a tourists visa and
> working. They’d find all sorts of emails talking a out a job._

Yes, those are non-citizens requesting entry. This sounds like it applies to
everyone - including NZ citizens.

And regardless, searches need to be proportional.

Full blown cavity/strip searches at random could cut down on the importation
of illegal drugs, but civilized countries require a reasonable suspicion for
invasive searches.

Why not apply that logic to digital devices?

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
_Why not apply that logic to digital devices?_

They did, at least according to the article. But it's a low hurdle, and cops
quickly figure out the script to bypass restrictions like that.

It's no different than the mishandling of trained drug sniffing dogs so that
they alert at the handler's command, rather than at
drugs/bombs/money/whatever. Countless cars are stripped at border crossing and
the side of the road because a cop didn't like someone's attitude.

------
lotsofpulp
Freedom isn't free! Have to keep fighting for it. Or figure out / be lucky
enough to become part of the ruling group.

Edit: I also find it funny when people get passionate about their "free"
country's national anthems when they're one bad underpaid, undereducated
border patrol agent away from not having any rights.

~~~
keyme
Who's the ruling group? AFAIK, everyone passes through the same border
agents...

~~~
pavel_lishin
_The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under
bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread._

And anyway, my understanding is that if you're rich enough to charter a
private jet, or to own one, you skip a lot of the border formalities.

~~~
keyme
No you don't... It's just another agent. Granted, this one sees very little
traffic each day, so probably less inclined to annoy you out of spite.

Perhaps if you carry a diplomatic passport, that's a different story
altogether.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'm sure that agent feels empowered to call people coming off private jets a
slut after demanding to examine their Tinder history.

------
jjcm
I really want phone makers to allow me to unlock into separate enclaves on my
phone. I.e. If I use 1234 as my unlock pin, it goes to my normal phone. If I
use 5678 instead, it unlocks to a separate user account with its own
notifications, pictures, apps, etc., similar to a truecrypt hidden partition.

~~~
mandeepj
It can turn out like this -

Officer - Do you have multiple pins on your phone?

You - (if you say) No

Then you lied to an officer. They can also find it out.

~~~
jjcm
"It's a work phone. There's an administrative account I don't have access to."

This is already true of laptops, and with some simple setup beforehand that
wouldn't be a lie. I highly doubt any customs officer would press further than
that.

------
ravenstine
I have been thinking of going back to live in NZ to be a software engineer
there, but now... uh, _no_. Such a shame, as it's a really nice country with
very smart people.

Granted, it's been very "totalitarian" when it comes to immigration for a long
time. Not that I don't think they have the right to do this, but when I went
to live there with my kiwi girlfriend, I had to give them actual copies of
letters she and I sent each other and get a chest X-ray to prove that I'm not
just taking advantage of their socialized medicine. So this sort of scrutiny
isn't totally out of character for NZ, but the digital search is where it gets
intolerable.

If NZ wants to innovate on anything or to have more movies filmed there,
they'll have to do it mostly by themselves, or pay ass-loads to import skilled
workers.

EDIT: I made a correction to a part that probably gave people the wrong
impression. This was not meant to claim wrong of NZ. I love NZ, and they have
every right. I only take issue with the digital search.

~~~
WaylonKenning
As a New Zealander, I'd say we're unashamed in trying to balance the welfare
of our citizens with growth opportunities from new immigrants.

If you're likely to be a drain on the public healthcare system, then you're
not likely to get permission to live here. Why? It's not fair to those people
who have already paid into the system, to subsidise someone who hasn't.

And we are picky. There's no visa lottery here. A points-based system with
high thresholds. And that's OK. Same as Australia. Same as Canada.

~~~
kleim
In France we have a special health insurance policy dedicated for treating
illegal immigrants ("AME: Aide Médicale d'État"). Yup... Too bad that many
people will call you a racist if you ever start to say it is unfair for people
who already paid into the system.

~~~
komali2
Why is it unfair? France is a democracy, presumably this law that established
this policy was decided by elected officials.

You can easily not like it, but it is certainly "fair." Unless you believe it
is illegal?

~~~
Zarath
Just like people "voted" to remove net neutrality in the US

------
r1ch
I don't know how others feel, but if I kept control of the device I would feel
much more comfortable with this process. The fact that they can make me unlock
the device then take it out of my sight and do unknown things to it means I
can no longer trust the device or any of its files (eg private keys, access
tokens, etc that may be stored on it).

If they sit down with me and allow me to maintain control of the device while
they ask to see recent chats and emails etc I would feel much more comfortable
(though don't get me wrong, I still see the whole process as a huge overstep
and invasion of privacy).

~~~
justtopost
Oh yeah, being forced to knowingly show my privates to a stranger is slightly
better than the stranger taking that look on their own without my knowledge
and consent. Both are still bad.

~~~
sib
The difference is that, if they take your phone away, there is nothing
stopping them from putting child pornography (or terrorism plans, or a
keylogger) on it without your knowledge.

------
woofcat
I recently had to go to America for a wedding, due to these types of policies
I always go through my phone and clean almost everything out of there.

Photos, logout of Google, clean up downloads, etc.

I don't have anything to hide, however having some random customs dude go into
Google Photos which has over a decade of my life documented doesn't seem
exactly ideal.

~~~
the_snooze
"I have nothing to hide" is just another way of saying "My friends and family
are stupid for trusting me." Your devices don't just contain information
that's sensitive to you.

~~~
woofcat
Yeah I think you really misunderstood my post.

I was simply saying, I don't have photos of me doing lines of Cocaine off
strippers. However I'm still concerned about the boarder patrol looking
through my shit.

Holy fuck HN can sometimes go off on a tangent.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _We 're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on
> flight mode_

This law isn't too bad as far as a compromise bill goes. The problem is a lack
of accountability. Three fixes and I'd be okay with it:

1) Officials must document their reasons for finding a "reasonable suspicion
of wrongdoing";

2) Travellers should be able to challenge the search in a court proceeding to
occur no later than close of business the next day (traveller must surrender
their phone to the court in the interim, but is free to leave the airport
after that); _and_

3) Searchers cannot (a) copy data from the phone while searching, (b) turn off
airplane mode or (c) take more than [2] hours to conduct their search.

~~~
natch
Not saying I agree with your "not too bad" assessment. But your list is
incomplete without considering the violations of third parties who have shared
items in confidence that are now on the local device.

So:

4) All third parties (meaning people other than the traveler) who have their
privacy violated in the process must be informed immediately of the full
details of the privacy violation. Which communications, pictures, etc. were
viewed and or copied and by whom, and how to follow up on these violations.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _All third parties (meaning people other than the traveler) who have their
> privacy violated in the process must be informed immediately of the full
> details of the privacy violation_

This isn't a requirement when _e.g._ police search an office and so wouldn't
seem appropriate in this case. NDAs, explicitly or implicitly (through
statute), tend to exempt courts, regulators and law enforcement.

~~~
sib
Many (most?) NDAs between companies represented by competent counsel do have
notification provisions (if Company A is compelled to disclose information
covered under the A/B NDA, Company A is required to inform Company B of the
fact [unless legally prohibited from doing so.])

------
superkuh
A lot of people here are saying you should just put your data online and then
download it later. But should you do this you probably will be using a third
party as your host (most people don't host from home even if they should).

In the USA at least under third party doctorine that means none of that data
is 'private' anymore and can be accessed without a warrant.

I don't know about NZ but I bet it's the same.

------
mavdi
We immediately need a phone and laptop feature called "Border crossing mode".
Once you can perhaps active anytime but only gets deactivated once you're
physically in a predefined location.

~~~
trhway
that mode should be almost always on - the CBP in US can do all that fun stuff
to you at any time as long as you're closer than 100 miles to any US border -
including ocean. So, for example, CBP can do anything they want to anybody in
San Francisco. Granted, for now they do that mostly to "brown" people - well
they need to start somewhere to get us into that shiny totalitarian future and
of course the start is always with the most vulnerable.

~~~
john_kuszmaul
Perhaps that mode could be called full disk encryption?

All humans inside the US border have the fifth amendment right to remain
silent, so handing over encryption passwords to the CBP is a choice.

Unfortunately, the 5th amendment doesn't apply in New Zealand - if you remain
silent at a NZ airport while customs ask for your password, they will impose a
$5000 fine on you. The only viable solution I see is to only travel to places
that do have 5th amendment protection or similar (which would immediately rule
out Britain, Ireland, Australia, and now NZ as well).

~~~
lostlogin
iOS 12 was a painful upgrade for me but the 4th erasure of the phone seems to
have worked. What this means is that I am now confident that I don’t lose
anything when I erase. So if you have good backups, just erase before the
border and walk though with a fresh phone, possibly with some dummy data in
there.

~~~
john_kuszmaul
If you use this strategy, you may want to make sure that you _securely_ erase
your data. Secure erasure is rather difficult on SSD, unlike on HDD where one
simply overwrites the bytes.

------
titzer
How does this work for employer-provided devices? I'd be violating my
employment contract and could be fired for providing customs with my password.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
I worked in a role that had rather strict rules about our devices and data. We
were given a different phone and laptop to take when traveling, and VPN'd back
to the office once there to access our files. The devices were just entry
level Blackberry/iPhones and Thinkpads (this was a decade or so ago) with
nothing on them except a local copy of the corporate contact list. No email
accounts set up, no calendar set up, etc. We were to VPN in for all that stuff
when not local (tether laptop to phone if not on wifi and needed email).

If we were questioned at all about it (I never was, but others were), we were
told to give them a business card from our direct Manager, and contact them
with any questions. I have no idea what the Managers were trained to say or
how they dealt with it as I was pretty low in the totem pole, but I assume
there's standard practices out there for this.

~~~
hugh-avherald
Not criticizing you but that's terrible advice. Not only is it pointless, it
exposes the traveller to criminal prosecution. Why would a customs officer
acquiesce?

------
fluxsauce
> The new requirement for reasonable suspicion did not rein in the law at all,
> Mr Beagle said. > > "They don't have to tell you what the cause of that
> suspicion is, there's no way to challenge it."

This makes me particularly uncomfortable. There should be reasonable grounds.

> Border officials searched roughly 540 electronic devices at New Zealand
> airports in 2017.

That does seem low, out of what I assume is hundreds of thousands of
travelers. With that said, it still doesn't sound reasonable.

~~~
WaylonKenning
Yup, out of 3.733M annual visitor arrivals.

------
LeonM
> "It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the
> cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs
> spokesperson Terry Brown said.

What files are they looking for on the device?

I mean, it's not like a terrorist will have a plan_to_place_bomb.doc file on
their device, so what's the point? What file could there possibly be on any
device that will threaten the security? And how is scanning devices going to
prevent you from downloading that file after you go through customs?

~~~
stevenwoo
One possibility is to catch dumb criminals who have draft messages stored
locally via email client that have illicit content 2012 source -
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12/heres-
the-e-mail-trick-petraeus-and-broadwell-used-to-communicate/)

------
rstuart4133
As others have noted this is easy enough to thwart if you prepare, it will
only catch the unsophisticated. So they aren't going to catch terrorists with
this, but it probably will catch a few people intending to work while on a
holiday visa.

But it would be nice if the phone manufacturers made it easier to side step.

Android is close already: it has multiple users. If it allowed you to hide a
user (so you had to type in a name, for example), it would be mostly there.

One thing I _really_ wish they would provide is a decent backup service, ie
something that allowed you to backup everything on the phone, to an encrypted
binary blob. Mainly I want this because having a backup that allows me to
restore my data if the phone gets destroyed would help sleep easier at night,
but of course it also solves this problem too: backup the phone to a hidden
cloud account, factory reset it, restore it on arrival.

------
arriu
This sounds troubling and it's a little disappointing to see comments
suggesting "factory resets before travel" or "dual booting". These are not
things anyone really wants to have to do.

Also, this issue raises some more questions:

1) It sounds like they might use a device to scan your hardware automatically,
potentially opening the door to copying files for permanent record

2) It is a small step from here to install tracking software on your device
(as China is doing in some places)

~~~
craftyguy
Other than fixing the actual problem (the overreaching
legislation/government), the only other solution seems to be using a burner
phone when traveling. I would absolutely not trust any device handed to an
official, even if it was factory reset and I had a backup.

------
jacquesm
I wish them much good luck with my elderly dumbphone, it has extremely little
on it that wasn't there when it rolled out of the factory. Besides that, way
to go to ruin your international reputation (not that anybody cares). Paying
$5000 to be allowed to break the law is interesting too: so it's about the
money? Or do you get fined and then you _still_ have to cough up the contents
of your devices?

------
m_eiman
Wouldn't it be possible to conveniently hide your usual filesystem from the
border officers by using the new APFS shared-filesystems-in-single-container
feature, without having to pre-allocate and waste space for an additional
hidden data partition?

Just install macOS like you normally do, set it up with a user and some basic
data. Then create a new partition in the same container and install what you
normally use (or even clone the first one, if that's possible).

Then set the basic one as default boot source, and hold alt on boot to select
the other one to get work done.

A light version of the "hidden encrypted volume" solution, without any risk of
overwriting your files.

~~~
chrisper
It's probably obstruction of Justice.

~~~
TomK32
I thought that's only the case when there's already an investigation?

~~~
chrisper
Maybe I used the wrong words. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know the exact
name of it. But I know using special configs to hide stuff from a federal
agent is the same as lying to them which is a felony, I think. Not sure if it
is the same in Canada though.

------
splaty
"A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in
the ways they're trying to get things across the border.

So they've realised they can bring data into a country on a smart phone with a
password. Law enforcement will really be screwed once organised crime figures
out the other options.

------
komali2
>"It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the
cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs
spokesperson Terry Brown said.

They will see my genitals and the genitals of many other people. Not sure how
not going accessing my off-phone backups is supposed to be better.

This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months
seriously considering new Zealand as a new home, after we tire of SF,
specifically because we felt that legally it was going down a better path than
the USA.

~~~
clubm8
>This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months
seriously considering new Zealand as a new home, after we tire of SF,
specifically because we felt that legally it was going down a better path than
the USA.

What made you think this? Have you been keeping an eye on the news regarding
NZ?

For example, they allowed American billionaire Peter Thiel to obtain
citizenship despite not meeting the residency requirements:

[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11790034)

Unsurprisingly, countries where laws can be bent or broken by the rich tend to
not respect individual rights.

~~~
komali2
And in doing so created a huge push by the New Zealand immigration peeps to
incentivize other tech workers to come in. They even put up stalls at tech
conferences, which was where this idea came from at all for us. Way they told
us is there's even specialized visas.

The fact that billionaires do as they please is a global fact I have long
gotten used to.

~~~
clubm8
>And in doing so created a huge push by the New Zealand immigration peeps to
incentivize other tech workers to come in

How so? He never even revealed the citizenship - it was discovered by NZ based
investigative journalists.

~~~
komali2
Vaguely recalling an article about how he created a push in new Zealand to
bring in more techn workers, leveraging his wealth to pressure/incentivize the
government, etc.

Regardless, to your original point - a billionaire doing as he pleases does
not affect my perception of a country.

~~~
clubm8
>Vaguely recalling an article about how he created a push in new Zealand to
bring in more techn workers

Cool, well I've provided a source earlier showing it leaked due to
investigative journalism.

>to your original point - a billionaire doing as he pleases does not affect my
perception of a country.

You are free to perceive things however you want, but you may find it
beneficial when interacting with others to ground your perceptions in facts
and logic, not feelings.

~~~
komali2
? I fail to see the relationship between a billionaire getting away with
something, and my sense of rule of law. It simply means new Zealand has equal
rule of law power to every other first world country...

~~~
clubm8
> I fail to see the relationship between a billionaire getting away with
> something, and my sense of rule of law. It simply means new Zealand has
> equal rule of law power to every other first world country

Uh, no. Other 1st world countries enforce their laws. For example, Iceland
locked up bankers who broke financial laws leading to a crisis:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-31/welcome-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-31/welcome-
to-iceland-where-bad-bankers-go-to-prison)

------
throw2016
Going through your personal papers is totalitarian and the definition of a
police state. The fact that this is being openly done in 'democracies' with no
shame makes the word meaningless.

Where are the protests, free press in arms, academics, ngos and call for
sanctions by the 'international community'?

Is anyone going to bomb New Zealand and the US for violation of human rights
and restore democracy? So much for 'our values' and the western tradition of
'enlightenment, freedom and democracy'.

------
boobsbr
> The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide access - whether
> that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials would need to
> have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

Does the Law in NZ have any provisions against self-incrimination? The US has
the 5th Amendment, some countries in the Americas signed the American
Convention on Human Rights. How does NZ deal with this issue?

Can't it be considered that providing a password to a safe or personal device
is akin to being a witness against oneself?

~~~
debacle
The 5th amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens and doesn't mean as a US
citizen that your device can't be confiscated on potentially frivolous
suspicions.

~~~
logfromblammo
The 5th amendment doesn't apply to citizens, either. It applies to the
government.

And the instructions to the government make no mention of citizenship status.
"...nor shall _[any person]_ be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness
against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law..."

The 4th amendment likewise applies to the government, and makes no mention of
citizenship.

"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."

The 14th amendment: "nor deny to _any person within its jurisdiction_ the
equal protection of the laws."

The government, of course, holds that physical searches at border crossings
are _reasonable searches_ , and therefore do not require warrants. Since
_Riley v. California (2014)_ , SCotUS established that searching the data
contents of electronic devices is _unreasonable_ to do after an arrest, and
therefore requires probable cause and warrant. They still have not applied
that to searches of border-crossers' electronics, and different federal
appeals circuits currently hold different positions on it. Hopefully, SCotUS
will soon rule that forensic analysis of electronics at border crossings
requires individualized suspicion, but the current nominee debacle does not
give me much confidence.

------
ljm
I wonder sometimes if policies like these are monumental cases of the XY
Problem in action.

For example, the government/border agency decides that travellers must give up
their phones and account passwords. In fact, other governments/agencies see
this as leading by example and tag along for the ride.

The justification we hear is 'national security' and, since the first thing we
were aware of was the solution itself, we treat it as viable without much
scrutiny and proceed to fill in the blanks about what 'national security'
means to us: is it terrorism? drug trafficking? illegal immigration? some
other hot button topic?

It begs the question and the frustrating thing is; we know the real answer:
governments just love authority and surveillance. Yet still, how about some
other questions...

What is a better solution to preventing terrorists from hijacking your plane?
It would make sense to address the circumstances that actively encourage
terrorism, no? That's foreign policy.

Drugs crossing the border? How about checking for the physical presence of
them as opposed to forcing people to incriminate themselves for recreational
drug usage?

Illegal immigration? That means a lot of things to a lot of people and, if my
experience in Canada is anywhere near representative, it might actually be
more successful if it wasn't so strict.

In no case does getting unrestricted access to your social media accounts,
your collection of nude selfies, entire history of messages going back years,
etc. actually aim to tackle the real problems. All the reasoning does is save
the government the job of justifying its pathological obsession with your
private life.

------
newscracker
> But Mr Beagle said "serious criminals" would simply store incriminating
> material online.

> "You'd be mad to carry stuff over on your phone.

Of course, intelligent criminals would never have incriminating communications
or evidence carried on a device across international borders. What's more,
they would know that there is such a law and hence have their devices wiped
clean or get devices with minimal information to support whatever cover
they're using. Lawmakers and law enforcement must be idiots to imagine that
serious crime could be prevented or caught by this measure.

> Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over the drafting of
> the legislation and said he was "pretty comfortable" with where the law
> stood.

This just shows how government appointed officers behave like puppets of the
government, and rarely side with common people on big issues (such as mass
surveillance).

Similar to DRM, these measures inconvenience the innocent while doing nothing
to prevent the bad people from doing bad things. The balance is tilted heavily
towards abuse and harassment of the innocent. Being one of the Five Eyes [1]
countries, I'm not surprised that New Zealand does this kind of thing.

The lesson is loud and clear: if you're traveling, backup your phone online,
wipe it, and then carry it with minimal personal information. Otherwise all
your personal communications, including sensitive/intimate photos and private
messages, will be taken by border patrol for their personal use.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

~~~
wang_li
>if you're traveling, backup your phone online, wipe it, and then carry it
with minimal personal information

It would be nice if phone vendors provided a mechanism to backup my phone,
wipe it, then some time later merge the backup with the contents of the phone.
Would be nice to be able to leave the primary contents of my phone at home
while a travel and then merge my travel photos and messages and such back in
when I restore my original contents after returning home.

~~~
newscracker
That was on my mind when I wrote that — it's not possible to merge data, and
there's no point in not using the device while traveling and avoiding taking
photos or sending messages (that aren't saved on some cloud platforms).

One alternate solution, if you feel safer after the border crossing event,
could be to use the native cloud backup feature of the phone maker. Backup the
phone on the cloud, wipe it, set it up with a new email address, and then once
you cross the border safely, restore from the cloud and start using it. You
wouldn't have to worry about merging data then. But the issue here, at least
for me, is that I don't want to backup my data on the phone maker's cloud.

------
tjpnz
As a Kiwi I've had some horrific experiences at the mercy of NZ customs. Aside
from the usual drug swabs of phones and cameras they on one occasion managed
to delete all the images I had stored on an SD card which they decided to
search - they of course denied all responsibility. I would advise anyone
traveling to New Zealand to leave their electronic devices at home.

~~~
jliptzin
I just won't go. Thanks for the tip.

------
cc-d
"New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs fine"

That headline reads as if it is from some dystopian cyberpunk novel. We've
reached the age where governments are conducting "digital searches" at whim
without just cause, gaining access to everything that makes you "you", and
claiming it's for your own safety.

------
Entalpi
So, it might basically be ”worth” it to just smash your device(s) instead of
refusing and paying the fee. Im not gonna do that, just raising an interesting
point.

~~~
djsumdog
It's probably more worth it to turn around and not enter the country; unless
it's your country .. in which case if you have the money, it's probably better
to refuse and see if you can get a court case started to challenge it.

------
no1youknowz
If this becomes the norm, then I can see a startup offering "convincing"
email, browser history, social media profiles, photos and telephone call lists
to present to customs.

Give those pesky 5 eyes poison data of a fictional life via a 2nd phone.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It would probably be easier not to bring a phone and just buy one when you
arrive.

~~~
daemin
But that looks awfully suspicious, so they might ask you for passwords to your
online social media accounts etc.

~~~
adventured
That ultimately doesn't matter. You tell them it's a travel phone, because you
fear losing your expensive regular phone. Your social media accounts have
elaborate, long passwords that would be impossible for a person to remember
and are stored in a password manager at home (countless formulations you can
go with in this story).

At that point there's nothing else they can get from you, the odds are
overwhelming that'll be the end of the discussion. There's probably a one in a
million chance that eg the TSA might detain you for a few hours out of spite
if they think you're screwing with them.

------
Lordarminius
My issue is with the fine.

Presumably,refusing to submit my phone to search is an criminal offence, the
mind bending part is that I can get out of this by paying money to the
government. I can see how a terrorist or drug dealer could be happy with this.

This sucks all round

------
Random_BSD_Geek
There go my plans to visit New Zealand.

------
mr_toad
The only terrorist incident to ever occur in New Zealand was perpetrated by
French government agents.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)

They were caught by a normal homicide investigation, as almost all murders in
New Zealand are. No special terrorism laws, border searches or secret
warrants.

This is not just a pointless invasion of privacy in the name of security
theatre, it’s a needless waste of time and money.

------
pstuart
Remember kids, this is what we get as long as we support the War on Drugs.

It's not about "I just want to get high", it's about removing insidious
incentives for the destruction of democracy.

------
lolc
I wonder ho such policies work when you're hauling a device for somebody else.
"Oh sorry this is my husbands's phone. And that laptop? It's my daughter's."
Or simply: "Oh my, I just got a new PIN and now I forgot it."

Is it permissible to punish somebody for not knowing or for forgetting? And if
not, who has the burden of proof? I find that these questions have no good
answer. For this reason alone I regard laws that take away the right to remain
silent as flawed in principle.

~~~
TACIXAT
Under US law you can be compelled by a court to unlock (provide passwords /
decrypt) a device if the contents of the device are known (the helpful search
term for this is forgone conclusion). Otherwise it should be covered under the
5th. As for "forgetting" a password in this case, you will be held in contempt
of court if they don't believe you, which can mean indefinite detention.

~~~
drewmol
IIRC there are some historic high court rulings setting a precedent that
detaining a defendant for not furnishing some information (combination to a
lock) violates their protection against compelled self incrimination / _right
to remain silent_ but if it was a physical object (key to a lock) that did not
necessarily voilate same rights. This has now led to digital age cases where
the prosecution suggests a password should be analogous to a key, not an idea.
On a quick search, I couldn't find the relevant cases or discussion...

------
Isinlor
Dual boot with one clean system and one actually in use that switch depending
on the password given :) ?

~~~
mahesh_rm
Anybody knows if there are existing ready libraries for setting this up on Mac
/ iPhone?

~~~
diegorbaquero
Doubt it, and surely must be really hard to create given the how closed the OS
ecosystem is. But I'd love such thing!

~~~
mahesh_rm
Indeed. It's been a few months I have been looking around for this sort of
honeypot booting system, with no results!

------
redleggedfrog
All these laws should come with a stipulation that, if nothing is actually
found on a device that actually helps law enforcement protect the civilians,
after say about 5 years the law is rescinded. Really, such laws should have to
come up for re-approval at an interval anyway.

Anyone who has something to hide will either be smart enough to hide it or not
bring the device altogether. Really all they're doing is annoying those who
are not a threat.

~~~
lolc
As if criminals as a class are smarter than the average. Oh they will be
caught by this! Example: The amount of people that have felt the urge to show
me pictures of their baby marijuana plants is scary. They carry those pics
everywhere on their phone! And it's not even like they need those for work.

Don't go around saying how it doesn't work. It makes the life of criminals
harder. So it absolutely works. People will be caught by this. The question
is: Is it worth it to lose the right to remain silent over it? In my view:
Never.

------
iamben
What is this actually addressing? Why are digital devices being searched? What
are they looking for? What has the world come to that this is a thing?

------
contingencies
Same in Australia now:
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6213007/Police-
want...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6213007/Police-want-mobile-
laptop-passwords-jailed-refusing.html)

It's like it's a pan five eyes scheduled implementation.

------
navs
What if most of your information is online, in some cloud platform and you
don't have the app installed on your phone?

My iPhone isn't logged into any cloud services and the only apps I have
installed are Google Maps and Gmail. I don't log into my Apple account and
don't have the Dropbox app installed. Much of my data is stored in an S3
bucket. Simply giving an officer my phone means I'm surrendering my Gmail
account and local phone data i.e. contacts and reminders. Not terribly worried
about that. To really investigate my digital presence they'd need access to my
Dropbox, AWS account, personal email etc. Can they request that information
despite not having any trace of it on my phone.

How deep do they go?

~~~
aspett
The article mentions that the searches are done in flight mode - so no cloud
snooping.

------
AllegedAlec
This wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be when I read 'digital
search'.

It's still a huge disaster of a law, though. It's an unnecessary invasion of
normal citizen's privacy, while not stopping actual criminals.

------
Reason077
Hmm, a “digital” search at customs?

When I first read the headline, I thought of something else...

------
exabrial
I expect a new feature of phones to include plausible deniability mode pins
soon, where you type in a certain pin and it unlocks to a faux account that
shows you texting your mom about broccoli recipes.

~~~
ixwt
I highly doubt a company such as Google or Apple will be doing this themselves
into their phone OS.

I could see this happening in a privacy oriented Android image though.

------
rectang
Is there a SaaS provider specializing in storing encrypted images of phones?

The idea being that before you travel, you upload the encrypted image and wipe
the phone, then after passing through customs you restore.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _before you travel, you upload the encrypted image and wipe the phone, then
> after passing through customs you restore_

That sounds like willfully evading customs, which is a serious crime.

~~~
pythonaut_16
I'm not so sure it's that clear. (I'm not a lawyer)

If you can lawfully download a phone image over the internet while in the
country and you can lawfully enter the country with no or limited digital
information on your person then I don't see how backing up your phone in a
different country (where New Zealand has no jurisdiction) and legally
downloading the backup in New Zealand is evading customs.

Another (presumably) legal scenarios would include backing up all of your
data, carrying no phone into the country, and then purchasing one while there.
Is that "evading customs"?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Neither am I a lawyer, but the key part is if you're (a) doing this as a
regular security precaution or (b) doing it specifically to evade customs. If
it's the latter, it's probably illegal. If it's being done for legal reasons,
it's legal.

Something I've noticed those of us who work with computers having difficult
with when it comes to the law is the way intent changes the legality of an
action. Wiring money to person X is generally legal, unless done so for the
purpose of acquiring illegal contraband. At that point, both the illegal
acquisition _and_ the wire become illegal.

~~~
clubm8
Neither am I a lawyer, but the key part is if you're (a) doing this as a
regular security precaution or (b) doing it specifically to evade customs. If
it's the latter, it's probably illegal. If it's being done for legal reasons,
it's legal.

Twice now you've expressed this belief. Please share some primary sources that
inform your beliefs.

------
adpoe
Last time I traveled internationally (~10 years ago), I had to buy a separate
international cell phone.

Not for privacy reasons -- but instead because my US-based phone wouldn't work
in some of the other countries I'd be in. (At the protocol level, I suppose.)

Assuming it's not prohibitively expensive, why not do the same thing, now?

I agree that this is a troubling policy. But it seems simple to get around, if
you were interested in doing so. It's also possible that this suggestion is
naive, and feel free to let me know why, if so. =)

------
S_A_P
Serious question- has there been a string of incidents in NZ that prompted
this legislation? I certainly try to stay current with world news, but I
definitely could have missed something. I think my follow up question is what
exactly are the authorities thinking they will find here? Ive yet to see any
sort of organized crime/terror organization leave detailed roadmap of their
nefarious plans in the notes app of their phone. I mean, maybe in the next
Austin Powers movie that will be the case...

------
yannovitch
Oh, you feel how does time really fly reading that. How can so many changes
happen in such a short amount of time ??

I traveled all around Europe, South East Asia and US/Canada only ~5 years ago
with all my hard drives (and as such, a copy of all my pictures, documents,
but some movies and music too), and most of the time, the fact that I carried
4 or 5 2.5"hard drives on me was just considered funny, once I explained that
it was hard drives with work & personal stuff on it.

------
adamc
Anyone who cares will just use a burner phone when they travel.

------
PerilousD
If you are carrying a phone and laptop out of the country in this day and age
with all of the contents of your digital life on it then you're an idiot. Last
couple of trips I used a postpaid phone and a cheap chromebook. They want the
phone keep it. They want the laptop keep it. I sure as hell dont want it back
after they've planted who knows what on it after their "investigation".

------
ph33t
waiting for kimdotcom to weigh in ...

------
capdeck
So, if you have lastpass app on your device (or, for the example sake, some
other password manager that allows local access to passwords) can they ask you
for the password to lastpass?

Also, the device is in "plane mode", but they will read your facebook password
from lastpass and off they go on _their_ desktop computer -- looking at your
FB profile, history, etc...

------
dieterrams
Some of the arguments I’m reading in defense of digital search point out that
the things luggage search was originally supposed to find would now be stored
on your phone.

I accept that argument in principle, but practically, since it’s so easy to
keep any illegal materials on the internet and retrieve them post-security,
how does digital search still make sense?

------
illusivesaint
Damn it's hard advocating others HOW IMPORTANT digital privacy is even if you
have nothing to fear nothing to hide because it sets the standard so low to
anyone to be vulnerable to be molested.

Bad people are going to find ways to find ways to take advantage of a system
in place, but at least we can try to make it a safe for those innocent.

------
Friedduck
Seems the new normal is to wipe your devices of anything you don’t want made
public regardless of country.

I give pause when pondering international business travel. I can’t very well
wipe my laptop, nor could I hand it over given what’s on it. Put everything on
a VM and move it off the device for border crossings?

------
tempodox
> ...organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways
> they're trying to get things across the border.

So if it can be got across the border digitally, why would they put it on
their phone that can be seized and searched?

The efficacy of this law wrt. the new challenges we face is at best
questionable.

------
felixis-1
Probably a naive question: The whole point of this kind of search is to find
something. But what is that "something"? What do they expect to find? Anyone
even remotely serious of doing something bad is not going to have it on their
phone just like that. What do they even expect to find?

------
Lio
“Excuse me sir but I believe your wife is quite hot and you maybe in
possession of some personal photos me and the boys would like to have a good
look at.”

Of course they don’t have to tell you why they want to look at your phone or
what they’re doing with the stuff they’ve copied off it.

It’s basically a pant sniffers charter.

------
alanfranzoni
This is very stupid, imho, because it works just as long as people don't know
about it. If I'm a "digital criminal", tomorrow I'll simply bring an empty
laptop or phone and have my backup sent to my destination (or directly from
the network). Pointless and annoying.

------
ryall
This is so easy to get around that it's only going to persecute regular
people.

As the comments above can attest to, there's multiple ways of circumventing
these searches. And we've given it what, 5 minutes of thought? Imagine what
you could come up with if you actually had something to hide.

------
trizic
During my layover in Germany, after scanning my bag the security agents wanted
to see if my DSLR was actually a camera. They did this by requesting to see
live image through the LCD screen. Thankfully it was charged but I wonder how
things would have gone if I ran out of battery.

------
robbiemitchell
It's not about security. If it were, you wouldn't be able to bypass it with a
$5k payment.

~~~
al_chemist
You don't bypass it. Paying $5k means you also lose your phone:

> If people refused to comply, they could be fined up to $5000 and their
> device would be seized and forensically searched.

------
bparsons
For anyone who goes back and forth between the US and Canada -- get a Nexus
card. It is the best 80 bucks you will ever spend.

You fly through security, both on land and in airports, and you even get
expedited through domestic security screening. It has made flying 10x better
for me.

------
ilrwbwrkhv
Is there no legal recourse for us? I understand one can travel with a burner
phone or backup, wipe, restore etc but if one wants to travel without doing
something a drug dealer would do, is there anything else that can be done?

Is there no collective legal recourse for us?

------
thewizardofaus
I'm curious - this is hypothetical. What if you were a millitary contractor
and had work on your laptop. And they asked to search it and hand over
password. What would happen then? Assuming they would need clearance to view
certain files.

------
glandium
Kind of related: How Face ID could be a game-changer for aggressive US border
agents
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113431)

------
hugh-avherald
The fine seems a very odd way to enforce it. If my phone had the details of
the people I've been assigned to assassinate and calendar invites from the
chaps I'm going to buy cocaine off, I'd probably just pay the fine.

~~~
drewmol
>calendar invites from the chaps I'm going to buy cocaine off, I'd probably
just pay the fine.

Maybe they considered this ;)

------
keeptrying
I have a strong feeling this will negatively affect tourism in the long run.

------
theshrike79
What if I have confidential information or software that can access
confidential information on my phone.

Now when the rent-a-cop futzes with my phone, it's a GDPR violation. But am I
to blame or the border agent?

------
jerkstate
it's a border - nations have the sovereign right to impose entry restrictions,
especially for foreigners.

the restriction and surveillance of their citizens within their country are
far, far more troubling to me.

------
mderazon
Wow this is some dystopian shit. I had no idea.

If someone has access to your phone they can always find something.

I wonder if there's a technological solution for this other than wiping the
phone clear?

------
sirmike_
So have a travel flip phone or ship to US ahead of visit.

------
nimbius
seems like this is relatively easy to circumvent.

Taking a laptop means running tails or having a second partition, something
simple/windows to boot up. Customs just wants to see a desktop im guessing.

as for file searches on the phone, its a bit more complicated...

1\. run syncthing on your phone, send your data to the cloud.

2\. wipe/factory reset the phone. now you're ready for that inspection.

3\. restore/load once on the ground and in your hotel.

------
CretinDesAlpes
Alright, the only solution I see is to bring a Nokia 3310 or an alternative
cheap smartphone with nothing on it if I travel to NZ.

------
xoa
I hope the spread of this sort of thing helps push forward general
implementations of owner customizable Views and associated triggers of our
systems and data rather then the long standing default of binary access/no
access. All the technical foundations for this exist right now, and in the
case of Apple in particularly they've already got it all together in every
modern iDevice. They've got a well hardened and integrated HSM, data siloing
and per-file class based hierarchal encryption ("Data Protection"), large
amounts of sensors, biometric readers capable of discerning multiple inputs,
and an interface amenable to adaption so that even regular users could
intuitively understand a View system. Plus for mobile there is an entirely
non-security related aspect which is growing in the public consciousness: our
limited attention and mental focus budget.

With all that what I'd like to see is a simple interface to create arbitrary
numbers of custom Views with associated triggers. The default one would be as
we have it now: everything you load is visible at all times after unlock. But
then you could create a new one, and select which apps (and in turn associated
data in that app silo) appear and which preferences are accessible, then have
a "This view will be made active when..." with nice UI for various key
conditionals (time, geography, speed, network connection, biometrics, and/or
password). It'd then be easy to ensure that while traveling between locations
only maps, ride hailing and airline apps would be available for example. If
anyone stole the device, or for that matter compelled it in any other way,
none of my financials or private info would be available. I couldn't even be
compelled to do it at that location, it'd be genuinely out of my control,
backed by the same hardware crypto system providing standard FDE. This isn't
even about government fully or even in large part, in dangerous parts of the
world just as modern device net locks reduced the value of stealing a device a
spread of "tourists and the like literally cannot be made to transfer money or
the like on the street" could reduce the incentives for certain crime.

And again it'd be a very grokable common sense feature for the attention issue
too. These days information overload and things trying to grab for some of our
mindshare is a huge source of stress. I'd love if my devices, rather then
always being a matter of adding on, started being able to actively help me
subtract instead. I could compartmentalize work apps to only even "exist" away
from home, no temptation or notifications even show up. And vice versa,
entertainment distractions vanish as I enter certain locations. "Willpower" is
something of a limited resource too and in practice often comes down to
essentially planning ahead to avoid temptations in the first place, not going
to the grocery store when starving for example. Our digital devices should be,
at our individual direction, automatically helping us as humans. I think
that'd be a valuable next step anyway, but the fact that vastly more powerful
and user friendly coercion code type systems could be made widespread too
would also be helpful in taking back some of the privacy digital can also take
away.

~~~
walterbell
QubesOS enables some of this today, at high setup cost.

iOS12 Shortcuts may enable this in the future, if apps can be tagged by users
with custom metadata, which then drives a OS-wide policy engine.

iOS "Screen Time" has arbitrary categories of apps, some of which incorrectly
classify social apps (like Flipboard) as "Reading". This need to be
customizable based on user priorities.

~~~
xoa
> _QubesOS enables some of this today, at high setup cost._

While I think that it can't really work as I envision without hardware
integration, in addition user friendliness is in fact a key part because this
is another case where widespread adoption would have a kind of emergent "herd
immunity" effect. The effect of introducing kill switches ("Activation Lock"
in Apple terms) for phones is a good example. From an NYT article from that
era [0] following Apple's general push of the feature:

> _" Comparing data in the six months before and after Apple released its
> anti-theft feature, police said iPhone robberies in San Francisco dropped 38
> percent. In London, they fell 24 percent."_

> _" In New York City, robberies (which typically involve a threat of
> violence) of Apple products dropped 19 percent and grand larcenies of Apple
> products dropped 29 percent in the first five months of 2014, compared with
> the same time period from 2013, according to a report from the New York
> attorney general’s office, which included data from the New York City Police
> Department. By comparison, thefts of Samsung products increased 51 percent
> in the first five months of 2014, compared with the same period a year ago,
> the report said."_

Now, with jailbreaking before that it was already possible to have a
relatively effective remote kill switch type of feature, and there were even
commercial jailbreak products to that effect (or to try to track it down and
find it). But when only one in thousands or tens to hundreds of thousands of
phones might have something like that, it wouldn't have any larger effect
beyond the specific feature working as intended and rendering the phone
unusable (or letting it be recovered maybe). For criminals playing the odds it
made no material difference overall, if they occasionally got a phone that
"broke" after stealing it they'd just toss it. But once it was universal it
changed the math on even trying in the first place and became not just a
response but a deterrent.

By the same token if everyone had an easy level of adaptive viewing, it'd
change the math for everyone else as well. And as a very compelling response
to an entirely separate popular demand, if it was everywhere and normal it'd
be a lot harder for even governments to single anyone out over it. Even
government resources are not in fact infinite, and it's an important check on
power as to whether they can engage in mass sweeps or must devote significant
individualized attention to each case.

> _iOS12 Shortcuts may enable this in the future, if apps can be tagged by
> users with custom metadata, which then drives a OS-wide policy engine._

I don't think Shortcuts can really handle this, at least not on a stock
device.

> _iOS "Screen Time" has arbitrary categories of apps, some of which
> incorrectly classify social apps (like Flipboard) as "Reading". This need to
> be customizable based on user priorities._

Screen Time on the other hand might represent a small step in this direction.
I'd be excited if it was!

\-----

0: [https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-
technolo...](https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technology-
led-to-a-dip-in-iphone-thefts-in-some-cities-police-say/)

------
post_break
Can you just reset your phone to factory when your plane touches down? Restore
once you get through customs?

------
rwcarlsen
Only the wealthy can afford privacy. It has been true for a while, but this
just makes it explicit.

------
lgregg
It’d be nice if you could have the equivalent of a docker image for your
phone.

------
arnonejoe
Simple solution. Set up remote desktop and also travel with a burner phone.

------
qwerty456127
> It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone

And what are they going to look for?

------
systems
what happens, if you get yourself a travel phone, a non smart phone, that
doesnt have facebook, or instagram

do they still give you trouble, like over why you dont travel with your
regular phone?

------
timwaagh
I wouldn't like this. but for sure i'd do the exact same. a lot of criminals
are dumb or not careful enough. they will catch a few baddies no doubt.

------
amaccuish
Am I excempt as I have an NZ passport?

------
plink
Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over the drafting of the
legislation and said he was "pretty comfortable" with where the law stood...
"You know when you come into the country that you can be asked to open your
suitcase and that a Customs officer can look at everything in there."

Evidently, severe brain damage is no hindrance to securing a commissioner's
appointment in New Zealand.

~~~
davezatch
Devil’s advocate: what _is_ wrong with that logic? If we accept that customs
can search our persons or luggage as a condition of our entering a given
country, what is it about digital materials that makes them off limits?

~~~
Shank
I store information on my phone like my private thoughts, because I know that
it’s an encrypted, secured device I always have with me. I wouldn’t store that
information on paper — the best analogy is that it’s a backup of parts of my
brain.

When you go through customs, they can’t just search your brain. They can
search your possessions, but they can’t mind dump you.

That’s the critical distinction. It’s not my property that’s the problem. It’s
that it’s an extension of my brain.

~~~
deegles
They only reason border agents don't use a mind-dump machine is that they
don't have the technology.

~~~
kotrunga
hahahahaha this is true

------
gameswithgo
welp, not going there anymore.

------
wild_preference
Happened to a female friend flying from Toronto to visit me in Mexico. Because
she had a connecting flight in US, a US agent went through her phone. (Classic
mistake of entering the US unless absolutely neccessary)

Guy was reading her Tinder messages and accusing her of being a prostitute. He
brought up some saucy messages and would say things like “girls don’t do this
kind of stuff for free...” Finally handed her back her phone with a comment
like “well, maybe you are a good girl ;)”

He was fixated on some message where she commented how much a meal might cost
at some restaurant and used that as an excuse to ask personal questions about
sex and prostitution.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Sadly, the motive there was probably he found her hot, would hit that, was
aggravated at reading her Tinder messages and finding her even more hot
because of it and was pissed off that there was no way in hell he would ever
get a shot at being with her, so he felt some need to piss all over her, blame
her for making him hot and bothered with no immediate means to get relief,
yadda.

This is an essential element of situational crap that I am referring to when I
complain about _sexism_ in the world. Meanwhile, other people seem to think I
mean "Men who firmly believe women should be barefoot and pregnant and who
have some conscious intent to prevent them from having real careers." or some
nonsense along those lines.

~~~
nojvek
That’s sexual harassment.

But then who’s gonna police the police?

~~~
Cerium
Police police police police. [1]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences)

------
moate
Not that I ever had are reason to go there, but we can officially strike NZ of
the list of places I'll be visiting.

I hope this sort of malarkey doesn't become the norm. This seems rife for
abuse. If you have good enough information to demand to rifle though someone's
phone or computer, you have good enough information for a damn warrant.

~~~
natch
Given the abusive way special courts can be set up as rubber stamps that never
deny warrants, a warrant would do nothing to make me feel better about this.

