How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border
101 comments
·March 26, 2025latexr
cudgy
Seems like it’s just as bad in Europe, even when not crossing borders
https://www.politico.eu/article/police-can-access-mobile-pho...
latexr
The US looks through your phone and locks you up for no reason (and I’m arguing the latter is worse than the former) and your response is the EU is “just as bad” because it does the former (which is the least bad of the two)?
cudgy
What’s bad is the lack of ability to look at one’s own area of the world and recognize the faults in your own backyard while wailing about equal faults in other areas of the world as if they are unique.
Surac
Intresting point is the recomendation to move my data from phone to cloud. Moving Data to cloud meens giving the US your data anyways
4ndrewl
It does, but as tfa suggests you have fewer rights at the border so perhaps it's more difficult to access if it's even on a US data centre?
dist-epoch
Border police does not have authority to demand your data from the cloud providers, unlike the police or FBI.
It's mentioned in the article:
> At the border, however, there are currently policies in place that prohibit CBP from searching online cloud services.
btreecat
And everyone knows, policies being followed is the current administrations strong suit.
dist-epoch
it doesn't matter, the cloud companies will refuse those requests.
Havoc
Very simple - burner phone for sketchy countries.
Then again with phones being basically mirrored to the cloud my working assumption is that US gov is helping itself to my data anyway
btbuildem
I've read reports of people getting detained or worse over how the authorities felt about their online activity (eg, social media posts etc).
It's trivial to delete social apps off your phone, and claim you don't have accounts on (at least) the less common ones.
My question is, do they have backdoors to the major ones? Say you go on a wild rant a few times, delete it afterwards -- can "they" root through the DBs and examine the deleted posts? Is that something meta/twitter/etc even keep long-term?
officeplant
>It's trivial to delete social apps off your phone, and claim you don't have accounts on (at least) the less common ones.
I have to wonder how long before we see someone get flack for not having social media presence at all. Maybe in 2030 I'll finally be forced to create a LinkedIn just as a safety measure for social media presence checks.
>My question is, do they have backdoors to the major ones? Say you go on a wild rant a few times, delete it afterwards -- can "they" root through the DBs and examine the deleted posts? Is that something meta/twitter/etc even keep long-term?
Given we had stories back in 2013 about how they tracked how often you typed and deleted without posting. (but not what was typed) It might be best to assume the worst as always.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2525227/Face...
stonecharioteer
A girl I dated found it creepy I chose to not have any social media. Needless to say, I wasn't going to install them again just for her.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK
Exactly, all my messengers, browsers, financial and security apps get a boot before crossing any border. It's easy to restore. Even easier if you use web sites instead of the apps where possible.
raducu
If I were you, I'd read again what I just wrote and ask myself, why on God's green Earth would I want to travel to the USA at this point in time?
It's obviously a bad idea at the moment.
postepowanieadm
> Move things on to a cloud storage server
Now they don't need a physical access to your device and may access your data at any time.
imcritic
Who are "they"? The cloud could be hosted by you.
1over137
The article suggests: "store it on your cloud storage like iCloud, Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive"
She's specifically suggesting that instead of taking a small chance on having your phone searched, to upload it to 1 of 3 American companies, all revealed by Edward Snowdon to collaborate with American government snooping. Crazy.
pocketarc
There is a big difference between storing your data in the same cloud as millions of others, and having someone individually unlock and look at your phone.
My phone has:
* Photos going back 10+ years
* Emails going back 10+ years
* Messages going back 10+ years
* All passwords (restricted, but if you're at the border and the person tells you to open it, you'll have to)
* Access to all files on my home NAS
If you got access to my phone and wanted to snoop around, you'd get... everything, all at once, all right there for you to see. There's SO much personal data. Even in airplane mode. It's all local.
Some of it is stored in companies' clouds, but surely you see the difference between my having my emails with fastmail, files on iCloud Drive, passwords with 1Password, and... "you have direct physical access to a fully unlocked phone and can force me to unlock any part of it, and you have no restrictions, and you don't have to 'collaborate' with Apple or any other company to get that data part by part".
postepowanieadm
That's another problem: you really don't know. Anyone may hack your cloud account/server.
SecretDreams
Right? Surely the guardian expects all its readers to self-host cloud services /s.
londons_explore
mail your phone to the USA (powered off, encrypted).
Then arrive without a phone (or with an empty burner just containing the map to your hotel).
pajko
As the article says, having no phone at all or having a factory-reset burner phone might be worse.
subscribed
To be honest I'd just shrug, admit I didn't want to go through the hassle of wiping my normal phone, so decided to use a temporary one.
Just flatly admit I intended to comply with the request, just didn't want to be afraid if I deleted all the saucy photos of myself with my wife.
But in all seriousness I have a phone like this already and use it as a navigation device only: just gmaps, Waze, citymapper and separate Google account (in my name).
Just devoid from anything personal while visibly being in use for a lot of time.
harvey9
At least they link to the eff at the end of the article. I wouldn't take technical advice from a general audience newspaper.
beardyw
> “The super-conservative perspective is to assume they are completely unhinged and that even the most benign reasons for travel are going to subject non-citizens to these device searches,” said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group.
timeon
If you are non-citizen the safest option is to avoid traveling to particular country.
Waterluvian
Yeah. Avoid travelling there if you can. Push back if work tries to send you there.
ghaff
Things can always happen at borders, some borders more than others but more than say traveling within a country in general. It's a risk equation but maybe not totally irrational to not travel internationally either personally or for work. It's not a risk equation I would solve that way in general but I could understand if people did, especially if they were of a nationality/ethnicity/profession/celebrity/etc. they felt put them at particular risk.
I'm in the US and I'm not in a big hurry to get a new Chinese or Russian visa.
Waterluvian
Indeed, many Americans probably feel unsafe visiting Russia or China in the same way that a lot of citizens of the modern world are feeling increasingly unsafe visiting the U.S. The U.S. is quickly devolving into one of those Travel Advisory countries.
pluc
Why keep on submitting these links that you can't read?
latexr
Why can’t you read it? The Guardian is pretty open. Even if on this one I get a banner asking to register, I can just click “I’ll do it later” and read everything.
They even clarify it’s not a paywall. But even if it were, those are still acceptable on HN, as per the FAQ¹:
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic². More here³.
Usually you’ll have an alternative link on the comments. Here’s one for you:
https://archive.ph/20250326114736/https://www.theguardian.co...
¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
² https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
³ https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...
justinrubek
The user you are responding to is complaining that it is acceptable. Telling them that it is acceptable isn't contributing much to the conversation.
latexr
My post was, first and foremost, about resolving their issue. Not only have I pointed out how to read the article, I even provided an alternative method in case that didn’t work for some reason. I also asked for clarification on their problem, in case I could help further.
Only secondarily was my post about how paywalled links (which again, this one isn’t) are explicitly on topic on HN with the reasoning why (since the OP was asking why they are permitted in the first place). Furthermore, the linked and quoted FAQ continues to explain that complaining about such links is explicitly off topic, with further links that I went through the trouble of including.
I don’t understand how you find that to be “not contributing much”. I can hardly imagine a more comprehensive response to this particular query.
wuiheerfoj
ah, I assumed it was just me - I can’t scroll at all one the page on mobile
hoseja
[flagged]
emayljames
I don't see how it is, you wont have your phone searched if you come here.
pjc50
Can't find out whether this is currently happening, the rules seem unclear.
I can definitely find someone asking for the power in Hansard a couple of years ago: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-12-05/debates/D4E...
null
hoseja
Except of course if you post something without a loicense.
postepowanieadm
Terrorism Act.
mschuster91
It's high time that the EU retaliates and institutes similar demands for US travellers. India and China could do the same.
Causing inconvenience to ordinary Americans is the only way that will get through the thick brains of US Congress, I am afraid. And this should have been done in retaliation ever since these measures were introduced.
gruez
Your proposed response to civil liberties violations by the US is for EU countries to do the same? What's next, arbitrarily arresting Salvadoran travelers to protest their government's arbitrary arrest of gang members?
tzs
> What's next, arbitrarily arresting Salvadoran travelers to protest their government's arbitrary arrest of gang members?
That comparison doesn't really make sense.
What mschuster91 proposed is that in response to the US mistreating EU visitors the EU should mistreat US visitors. It's a straightforward symmetrical tit for tat. One party starts harming another, that other reciprocates with a similar harm directed to the first party.
In your comparison it would be others responding to El Salvador mistreating its own citizens by also mistreating El Salvador's citizens. It is missing the crucial symmetry of a tit for tat.
latexr
> It's a straightforward symmetrical tit for tat. One party starts harming another, that other reciprocates with a similar harm directed to the first party.
And then the cycle of hate and harm becomes infinite. Or, in other words:
> An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.¹
Random US citizens are not at fault for random US border agents harming random EU citizens. By all means, have the EU refuse entry to US citizens, but treating them like the US does—imprisoning them for weeks—is unacceptable even in retaliation.
¹ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/27/eye-for-eye-blind/
the_other
Country B starts doing shady stuff. Country A wants to differentiate itself from B, to retain its A-ness. If A imposes policies that match B's, A becomes more like B. B has exerted soft power over A, and is now in a stronger position to take control of A than it was before.
mschuster91
> What's next, arbitrarily arresting Salvadoran travelers to protest their government's arbitrary arrest of gang members?
For that case, try international sanctions - of which, yes, increasing visa requirements or banning entry bar special cases (say a Salvadorian having family in the EU) certainly is an option that should be discussed.
The EU has strength through the size of its population and economy, and it's time we finally start playing our cards instead of just bending over.
ghaff
As someone who travels from the US to Europe a lot, my reaction would be sadly shrug my shoulders and not travel to the EU any longer if the requirements were as onerous as, say, China or Russia. (Letters from an organization, etc.)
Yes, the UK put ETA in place but that's trivial and mostly symbolic. Took me about 2 minutes to complete which was mostly about grabbing my passport to get the number.
exe34
it's almost as if American citizens were responsible for who they elected.
alwillis
About 90 million Americans didn’t vote in the election; 75 million voted for his opponent
That’s 165 million people—about 60%—of Americans who didn’t vote for the current president.
harry_ord
Yes but not all of them, no need to drag every person into this.
mc32
True but only because the last guy as well as the gal they offered as alternatives were so out of touch.
You can tell because now Newsom is singing a different tune. He even denies ever using the word “latinx” and Bernie now claims secure borders are a must…
Don’t put people is a position where they will make a choice you (the other guys and gals) will regret. Don’t “dare” them.
raducu
>. What's next, arbitrarily arresting Salvadoran travelers to protest their government's arbitrary arrest of gang members?
Genuine curiosity, are you a Trump fan?
WhyNotHugo
If someone behaves inadequately, you don’t teach them to behave better by imitating them.
Causing inconvenience to average Americans won’t have any impact in the actions of their ruling class. In fact, they would likely spin that into propaganda against foreign countries.
mschuster91
> If someone behaves inadequately, you don’t teach them to behave better by imitating them.
The status quo aka doing nothing hasn't worked either so far - to the contrary, with each administration, the bullshit increases. So, it's time to escalate - if the US doesn't learn the easy way, it takes more pressure.
kasey_junk
Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK all allow similar searches at the border.
China allows phone searches _anywhere_ without warrant.
I don’t know the rules in the EU or India currently but worked for a company 20 years ago that would not let us travel across any border with IP on a laptop because the assumption is that border agents could demand access both electronically and physically.
redserk
I don’t think that would do much. The states that went for Harris have a fairly higher degree of passport ownership than states that went to Trump.
As someone who grew up in an area leaning hard conservative, the trope of “American who doesn’t travel outside of their state” exists for a reason and describes a lot of people. Extend that to international travel.
https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/...
theandrewbailey
> Causing inconvenience to ordinary Americans is the only way that will get through the thick brains of US Congress
No, you need to cause inconvenience specifically to the ruling class, not ordinary people. Otherwise, Congress will just hand-wave away concerns of their constituents if it doesn't affect themselves personally.
mc32
They’re not going to. They like/depend on travel dollars too much. We do too but don’t care because it’ll only be few people we don’t care about who stay away.
In any case tourism is bad for the environment. Stay local, vacation locally be socially responsible.
1over137
>They’re not going to. They like/depend on travel dollars too much.
Travel by Canadians (to USA) is down to covid-era lows.
jajko
You overestimate the importance of US travelers and their money, that's just 4% of world population. We get plenty of internal cross border tourism and Asia is ramping up every year.
But it ain't the best idea anyway, those americans that do travel abroad are mostly the saner ones and not avid trump voters. No point trying to target some rednecks that are trivial to manipulate via emotions whose farthest life trip was maybe to Tijuana.
Gud
No thanks. Treat people how you want to be treated.
While protecting your data privacy is important, I’d be more concerned about being detained without reason or recourse.
https://apnews.com/article/border-tourists-german-canadian-d...
Here’s a better tip: Don’t travel to the US. They are making it very clear they don’t want anyone else there.