
Canadian Charged for Not Unlocking Smartphone at Canadian Border - jpdaigle
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/quebec-resident-alain-philippon-to-fight-charge-for-not-giving-up-phone-password-at-airport-1.2982236
======
JohnTHaller
We should frame this story with what the actual end result of 'unlocking your
phone' is when discussing it. The government routinely claims that it is no
different than asking a traveler to open a physical briefcase. It is very
different.

If you're treating the phone as a 'good' as indicated in the quotes on this
story, you can inspect my phone as a good. You can look at the phone. You can
xray it. You can open up the back cover to ensure it's a real battery inside
and not something more sinister. All that would be fine and fall within what
the law was intended for.

What the government is actually asking you to do is unlock your digital key to
your entire digital identity for them to do with as they wish. Your phone has
direct access to all your email accounts, all your personal and work files
within the cloud (Dropbox, Box, iCloud, Google Drive, etc), your entire
address book, your chat history, all your personal photos, your private PGP
you use to sign communications to prove they came from you, etc, etc.

Asking to inspect your phone is fine. Asking to have complete access to your
entire digital life, history, and identity is not. If I'm asked for the
former, go ahead and inspect it, I put it through the scanner on every flight.
If I'm asked for the latter, the answer will be no.

~~~
shard972
And then you will be fined for your non-compliance with the law, if you don't
like the law go ahead and leave.

~~~
pigscantfly
With that attitude, how do you expect to ever improve anything?

------
ignostic
Customs officials forcing you to unlock your phone is not just an invasion of
privacy - it's a pointless invasion of privacy. Customs agents don't even know
where to start in finding data that a user wants hidden.

Even if allowed access to personal devices, data is slippery enough that it
could be stored in almost anything. Here's yet another example of taking away
rights in a way that does nothing to deter actual crime. Hopefully the court
understands technology enough to make the right call, but I'm not counting on
it.

~~~
spiritplumber
I had this experience. My laptop wasn't locked, but I was asked to let someone
look through it. That took about 20 minutes, which caused me to miss my
coincidence.

Since I now had time to waste, I asked to see the customs lady's supervisor,
and then berated the person who inspected my laptop for not having any idea
how to do this sort of search properly. So, I ended up sitting both the
customs lady and her supervisor there for another hour or so while I taught
them how to use undelete and some basic free forensic tools.

I then handed them a bill for an hour of my time and left to wait for the next
plane.

I like to think it took them a while to process just what the hell had
happened. Mindless securistas like that need to be humiliated at every turn,
or they'll never stop. Society - the segment of society with which they
interact - must make it clear that their job is not wanted, not needed, and
not welcome.

This was in Montreal in 2009, if anyone cares.

~~~
rjbwork
Hilarious! Did you ever receive payment for services rendered?

~~~
spiritplumber
No. I am fairly sure that it all went in one ear and out the other...

(I do this stuff a little too often, maybe twice a year. This probably makes
me an asshole, but it gets the testosterone out in a nonviolent manner, so
it's the lesser of two evils ,really).

------
udev
"Under the Customs Act, customs officers are allowed to inspect things that
you have, that you're bringing into the country,"

\- Here's my phone, sir. \- I see it has a password, give me the password. \-
Mhhh... OK. It is 1234. \- Oh, I see you have Dropbox app installed. I need
the Dropbox password. \- Mhhh... OK. It is 5678. \- Oh I see you have a GPG
encrypted file in Dropbox. I will need to decrypt that. Give me the password.
\- Mhhh... I can't... It's encrypted with a public key and I don't have the
private key on me. \- Ok, boys! Take this guy! He is clearly obstructing.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Could you not backup your device, wipe it at the border, and then when they
request the password simply say "There is no data on the device. Its as it
comes from the factory" and hand it to them?

You could then perform an over the air recovery once safely away from the
border.

~~~
Spearchucker
I do this (reset and reformat to factory spec) with my phone and my laptop
every time I cross a border. On the other side I download a TrueCrypt file
which has everything (and only what) I need whilst abroad. I started doing
this in 2010, after my phone got taken into another room for a half hour at
Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv in 2010.

~~~
Magi604
I've been wondering about how to do this.

The problem I'm having is that I have a ton of widgets and custom settings on
my phone (Android). If I were to wipe my phone before crossing a border, it
would take quite a while to get it set up the way I like on the other side.

I am just using stock android though. I wonder if there is a way to achieve
what I want with a rooted phone.

~~~
discreditable
You can completely backup most apps and your sdcard with adb on an unrooted
phone [1]. The tricky ones are apps like Google Authenticator, which disable
adb backups. You have to be patient and not use your phone for a while. It
takes a long time. If you root, a nandroid backup is the way to go.

[1] [http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-
nexus/general/guide-p...](http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-
nexus/general/guide-phone-backup-unlock-root-t1420351)

------
andrewchambers
There is no reason anyone should search a phone, because anyone smuggling
"illegal data" can just transfer it directly over the internet undetected.

This is horrible and ridiculous.

~~~
gav
Unlocking my phone for border officials in 2013 when I arrived in Canada cost
me about $300. They turned on cellular data when it was left in airplane mode
so they could search through my emails.

I fly internationally on business and the Canadian border officials are the
worst I've run across.

~~~
shard
This brings up an interesting point. Next time I fly with my smartphone, I am
going to remove my SIM card so that something like this doesn't happen.

------
allendoerfer
As a European I have to say, that I associate these sort of things with
totalitarian regimes and it is just unimaginable for me why the American
society tolerates this while _fighting for democracy_ elsewhere.

~~~
happyscrappy
If you had bothered to read the article you would know this was Canadian
Border Patrol.

~~~
allendoerfer
I was indeed referring to both Canada (because of this article) and the US
(because of previously read articles) and therefore used your continents name
in anticipation of comments like this.

~~~
thedufer
The continent is North America. If you want North and South America, Americas
is fine, but must be plural. You're being simultaneously pedantic and wrong.

~~~
allendoerfer
Alright, lets do this. Wiki says you are pedantic and wrong while I am only
pedantic.

> The Americas, _or America_ , also known as the New World, are the combined
> continental landmasses of North America and South America …

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas)

I love how strong you all feel about this. Just relax.

I am from Deutschland, but most people on the world call it either by a too
general term Germania - and nobody in Denmark, Austria or the Netherlands is
offended - or the too specific term Allemannia - and nobody in Switzerland is
offended. In English you even use your own names for German cities (Cologne,
Munich etc.) and the people there do not give a crap.

~~~
thedufer
Wikipedia is a great resource in general, but it fails in places. For example,
none of the 3 sources cited for that usage of America agree with that. One
points out that America (singular) can mean any of N America, S America, or
the USA (but not both N and S America). The second doesn't refer to America
singular at all, instead clarifying usage of "American". The third gives us
some historical context - America was used to mean N + S America, but only
prior to the 18th century.

I will admit that if you are from the 17th century, your confusion is
reasonable, but I question how you found HN.

More importantly, at least 95% of the English-speaking world disagrees with
you, and that's the real test of language and definitions.

I'm curious - in what way is Germany not an appropriate name? My understanding
is that it's a translation of Deutschland, and considered an exact synonym.
I'll admit that hundreds of years ago Germany or Germania meant something
different from modern-day Deutschland, but I fail to see how that's relevant.

~~~
allendoerfer
Germany is the biggest Germanic country (population-wise) but the Dutch and
others are Germanians, too. Much like the US is the biggest American country,
but Canadians are Americans, too. It would be weird to use the word "Germane"
in German for Germans, because we would picture some wild guys fighting
Romans. For the same reason, you do not call the French Gallian or the Italian
Roman.

I indeed said "American" and at least cited some sort of source instead of
claiming that you are "95%" wrong, but lets keep it with this. I mentioned the
German-story anecdotally. Nobody really cares. Names are just words, you can
just relax, when its clear, what the word was intended to say.

I promise to add a "North" the next time and hope, that I will not get chased
by angry Mexicans.

------
akamaka
Here's the section of the law that he was charged under:

 _False statements, evasion of duties

153\. No person shall

(b) to avoid compliance with this Act or the regulations, (i) destroy, alter,
mutilate, secrete or dispose of records or books of account, (ii) make, or
participate in, assent to or acquiesce in the making of, false or deceptive
entries in records or books of account, or (iii) omit, or participate in,
assent to or acquiesce in the omission of, a material particular from records
or books of account;_

I'm not a lawyer, but I would be pretty dismayed if a court agrees that this
covers withholding a password.

~~~
DannyBee
I"m a US lawyer, and uh, this looks remarkably weak of a charge unless their
is some canadian precedent somewhere that says "records or books of account"
covers "random shit on non-business phone"

~~~
giarc
I believe I read that this type of case has not been tested in Canadian courts
yet.

------
PeterWhittaker
Interesting. I don't have a password. And I defy you to unlock my phone.

The question is "Can I be forced to unlock my own phone? Under what
circumstances? Under what circumstances can I be charged for refusing to do
so?"

If you haven't already guessed, I use a complex swipe pattern, one that uses
all nine points and cannot be determined from reading the grease streaks, at
least not easily. I know this because I moved to the current pattern after my
daughter unlocked my phone by reading the grease streak. I changed the pattern
and handed it back. It even used the previous pattern. She took one luck,
uttered an obscenity, and handed back the phone.

Can I be compelled to describe how to perform the swipe? To describe the
pattern? To guide the agent? Interesting questions....

~~~
hnnewguy
> _Can I be compelled to describe how to perform the swipe? To describe the
> pattern? To guide the agent?_

Yes, yes and yes.

Until there is legal precedent, if they want into your phone and you don't
provide them access, you'll be in trouble. Any "cleverness" regarding a
security code will likely make it worse.

~~~
seanp2k2
And this is why deniable encryption is important:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption)

------
DennisP
Smartphones should have optional extra user accounts, with no indication of
whether they exist. Same phone number, but the account you use is the one that
records the history. Keep one mostly clean and that's the one you unlock.

~~~
higherpurpose
Android 5.0 does. It's actually quite hidden and I only found out about it by
mistake when playing with my new update (although I remembered Google
announced it earlier after that, but had forgotten about it).

More operating systems should be doing this, including desktop ones. Windows
makes multiple accounts too obvious.

~~~
pedalpete
Why would this get downvoted??

------
sneak
The idea of nations and borders is one the time for has passed.

I personally don't care what invisible, made-up lines you were born within or
without. Do you?

~~~
chc
This sounds more like a platitude than a thought I can actually agree or
disagree with. What does it even mean? You want to abolish rule of law? You
want everybody to be ruled by the Communist Party of China (now the Community
Party of The World)? You just want everybody to behave the way you imagine
people ought to behave in a utopia?

~~~
Zigurd
Many parts of the world had not formed into modern nations states 300 years
ago. Surely there was the rule of law in many places without the current idea
of nations. There is no a priori reason the current political organization of
people is eternal, or even very durable.

~~~
vacri
By 'not durable', do you mean 'the concept stretches as far back as we have
written records'? Yes, 'nations' meaning 'something that gives you a passport'
haven't been around long, but 'nations' meaning 'geopolitical entities' is as
old as record-keeping itself.

And what do you mean by 'rule of law'? Do the decisions of tribal elders
count? That doesn't suggest consistency, which is the spirit of the term.

~~~
dublinben
>but 'nations' meaning 'geopolitical entities' is as old as record-keeping
itself

This is completely untrue. States as we recognize them in the modern sense
have only existed since the 17th Century in Europe[0], and much later in other
parts of the world[1]. Before this time, political organizations consisted of
kingdoms, principalities, city-states, tribes, and various other small
groupings of people.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty)
[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization)

~~~
vacri
_This is completely untrue. States as we recognize them in the modern sense_

Well, I said 'nations', in response to the parent saying 'nations'. I didn't
say 'states'. If you are going to be pedantic, then be pedantic correctly.

 _Before this time, political organizations consisted of kingdoms,
principalities, city-states, tribes, and various other small groupings of
people._

I guess places like Egypt, the Roman Empire, and Ming were all 'small
groupings of people'?

That somehow 'Rome', that stretched from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, was
merely a 'city state'? Even after the capital was moved to a different city
half a continent away? That despite having a complicated system of senators,
emperors, provincial governors (or that they even had the concept of
'provinces'!) and so forth, that there was no 'political organisation'?

In the context of the conversation, the OP's 'nations and borders', there's
nothing wrong with what I said - 'nations' and 'borders' have been around for
as long as we have records.

------
brandon272
Where's the line? If you give them your lock screen PIN can they then request
your bank app password? The credentials for your work VPN?

~~~
TheCraiggers
There is no line, except perhaps for the first one. This is why so many of us
are totally against crossing that first line and giving up passwords. After
that, tis a very steep, slippery slope indeed.

------
coldcode
It's actually a good thing they charged him, as now there is a case with
standing to determine the legality of this practice. If he wins it creates a
precedent if he loses a reason to dispense with the current leadership.
Imagine if they tried to force all visitors to divulge their password in order
to snoop on the phones. Goodbye vacation business.

~~~
r00fus
So if he's lucky he'll been "precedented" [1]. Would you take that risk for
the good of everyone, especially when it could go wrong? As much as I'd like
to say yes, I'm not sure I would.

[1] [http://goo.gl/uvIkmC](http://goo.gl/uvIkmC)

------
nasalgoat
Border guards had me unlock my phone to check text messages and my emails in
regards to a car I was trying to import, to see if I was lying about the
value. I wasn't. It was horrible but refusing meant serious fines and perhaps
jail time.

~~~
brandon272
Did they go through your phone because you told them you had text messages
and/or emails where the value was discussed?

~~~
nasalgoat
No, I brought out my phone to bring up an email showing the ebay ad for the
car in question and at that point they asked me to hand over my phone.

From now on, I'm backing it up and wiping it before I get to the border. Just
on principle.

~~~
mattm
Unfortunately, the best policy when dealing with these people is "say and do
as little as possible". Give one word answers and don't offer any other
information that you're specifically asked for. Also, don't engage in any
friendly conversation. I tried that before and would get hounded by questions
whereas if I just answer "Yes", "no", "2 weeks", "travelling" then I get
through much more quickly.

~~~
bigiain
Time again to remind people:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

"Don't talk to Police"

~~~
MichaelGG
While good overall advice, I understand that those protections do not cover
you at the border. As an American entering the US, yes you just need to
provide a customs declaration. As a non-US person, it's not clear what rights
you have. They certainly don't need to permit you entry.

~~~
bigiain
Sure. It's certainly more complicated at borders (or, in the US "border zone"
[https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-
governments-100-mile-b...](https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-
governments-100-mile-border-zone-map) ), especially for us non-US citizens,
but the underlying sentiment still holds.

The other guy does not have your interests in mind. He knows the rules better
than you, and knows which rules you probably don't know and what he will get
away with when bending the rules. He's probably not specifically out to get
_you_, but he's definitely being measured on his "performance" by whoever pays
him, and that means he's highly motivated to "get" enough people, whether or
not it's deserved. Anything you say is less likely to convince him of your
innocence than it is likely to give him more ammunition to use against you.

Make both of your lives easier - firstly don't do anything wrong, secondly
answer any questions he has with the briefest possible truthful and
polite/respectful answer. You'll get waved through, and he'll move on to the
next talkative and/or disrespectful person and give them a hard time. (For
those of us who aren't US citizens, remember it _is_ a privilege to be
permitted to visit, a privilege the possibly minimum-wage
customs/immigration/border people on the ground have the authority to revoke.)

~~~
WildUtah
"For those of us who aren't US citizens, remember it _is_ a privilege to be
permitted to visit, a privilege the possibly minimum-wage
customs/immigration/border people on the ground have the authority to revoke"

This is a libelous accusation. The US Government doesn't pay its employees
minimum wage. Those border police make more than engineers and programmers on
average.

------
guard-of-terra
Does our world have even one country that is not awful but at least passable?

(Preferrably one you can actually live in?)

The shrinking life space makes me contemplate suicide.

~~~
bigiain
People _used_ to say "Im moving to New Zealand!", but the Mega/Kimdotcom
fiasco and some of the most recent Snowden files show they're no better than
any of the rest of them.

I'm hoping Elon gets us to Mars and we get to leave the B-Ark behind on this
once-nice rock that we're busy destroying for ourselves...

~~~
onethree
and now NZ customs is seeking blanket authority to force people to give them
passwords at the border

------
wongarsu
Them being allowed to search my phone is one thing, but how is not unlocking
it "obstructing border officials"?

Where I come from (Europe), you aren't required by law to help police (or
border officials). If they come with a warrant to search your house and your
door is closed, you aren't allowed to obstruct them by barricading your door
but you are not required to help them by opening your door either (be prepared
to pay for your new door though). Is that different in Canada?

------
kazinator
Since the digital storage of a phone cannot contain a firearm, explosive,
blade, protected species of plant or animal, or a pork sausage, they have no
goddamned business.

------
powertower
Please look into the details of the court papers before making a judgement.

I would say that at least 70-80% of these stories leave out very important
details and contexts - to mold what happened to fit whatever narrative the
spinners subscribe to.

For example -

The person could have been importing a large amount of goods with him that
exceeded the value he stated.

Once questioned about the disparity, he might have made statements about
having the transactions documented in his phone.

The boarder agents would then have asked to see those transactions. Or even
said, "could you just turn on your phone, move the screen towards us, and show
us (or just email it to us so we can print out and attach the record to your
declaration)".

I've looked into pretty much every major story, and once you get passed the
superficial reporting, and into the actual details, it becomes depressingly
clear that the media (at all levels and all sides) are just political (or
ideological) organizations that filter, mold, and in a lot of cases make up,
everything they put out.

~~~
tomek_zemla
Actually majority of people searched going through borders turn out to be
perfectly innocent... Which means that if the law does allow officers to
search everybody's personal information on their electronic devices they can
browse at will my personal communication every time I cross the border.

One good thing about this story is that electronic device searches on Canadian
borders are somewhat in the legal grey zone and this will force the courts to
clarify the rules. And... allow public to voice their approval or disapproval
of this ongoing practice.

~~~
powertower
I don't think I was stating otherwise.

------
dghughes
This gives me an idea for an app to make for mobile phones.

Leave the phone off or turn it off before you get to the airport Security line
then when you turn it on the app auto-starts which makes the phone slowly
boot.

Then when the phone does finally boot it shows a fake screen showing
"Installing update 1 of 44" and make it so it never ends.

My password is my index finger I should change it to my middle finger, my
password is written down and really complex I'd never be able to remember it
without seeing it.

------
jefstratiou
Unfortunately for our good hero at the border, this mess all needs to be
tested in the courts. He's just the prop for whatever organizations want to
line up behind him. Just as the 'prosecutors' will be the prop for the actors
lined up behind the definition of their current policies.

See you in a decade when this all shakes out.

------
Absentinsomniac
I hear they can even copy your whole drive and send the contents off for
analysis:

[http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-u-s-border-
a-c...](http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-u-s-border-a-
constitution-free-zone-where-officials-can-grab-your-computer-and-copy-your-
hard-drive)

------
shpx
Do we not have a "you shall not be compelled to testify against your own
person" in Canada?

For those unaware, here in Canada they've started playing catch-up ever since
the snowden leaks, and they've been doing it with the same strategy (wait for
any kind of terrorist attack and manipulate the people)

------
cesarb
Giving someone the password allows more than just looking around. Giving
someone the password also allows them to _modify_ the data on the device.

Even if you "have nothing to hide", this is worrying. Who knows what has been
changed on your device?

------
joe_developer
Idea: When you're traveling change your settings to load the grub shell --
they ask for the password and you can say, "There is no password. It's a Linux
grub-shell, just type the commands you want the computer to execute."

------
qu1mby
Deplorable. Where notebooks are concerned, it reminds me of a TrueCrypt decoy
password feature that would unlock a 'clean' hidden volume when entered in
place of your 'working' volume password. Might be mistaken, though.

------
tomek_zemla
Here is an idea for workaround. Have two passwords. One normal, the other one
wipes out the phone. Back up your device to the cloud before you travel. Hand
it in with a good smile and bad password...

------
towelguy
Why is someone looking at your cellphone not in the same privacy level as
someone reading your mail? Would customs officials ask to read your letters?

------
userbinator
I wonder if it would be considered even more suspicious to _not_ carry any
phones or other electronic devices at all across a border?

------
gnud
At least with a password you can refuse. With a fingerprint it's very easy to
actually force you to unlock your device.

------
lxfontes
relevant: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/06/charge-your-phone-before-
fl...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/06/charge-your-phone-before-flying-tsa-
will-now-block-dead-devices-at-some-airports/)

------
quipp
out of curiosity, I wonder what would happen if an app was made to lock the
phone down for a period of time or some other future forward criteria. Can
they charge you when you don't actually know the password.

------
lasermike026
This kind of thing is a big f'ing deal breaker.

------
jaybuff
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_v._California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_v._California)

~~~
CanSpice
American case law doesn't really hold for Canada.

~~~
mikesko
And in any case, at borders there is not the same level of protection as
within the country:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception)

"This doctrine is not actually an exception to the Fourth Amendment, but
rather to the Amendment's requirement for a warrant or probable cause.
Balanced against the sovereign's interests at the border are the Fourth
Amendment rights of entrants. Not only is the expectation of privacy less at
the border than in the interior,the Fourth Amendment balance between the
interests of the Government and the privacy right of the individual is also
struck much more favorably to the Government at the border.This balance at
international borders means that routine searches are "reasonable" there, and
therefore do not violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against
"unreasonable searches and seizures"

~~~
waqf
> _Not only is the expectation of privacy less at the border than in the
> interior ..._

Begging the question, wouldn't you say? The only reason there is less
expectation of privacy at the border is because of government policies, like
this one, whose constitutionality is open to question.

