Another Appeals Court Agrees that Border Agents Can Search Your Phone for No Reason

Different appeals courts have ruled both for and against this and even the Supremes said, last month, that geofence searches require a warrant, but so far, that court has not been willing to take up a border search case.

In the case at hand, the Fourth Circuit said that a manual search of your cellphone at the border is routine and does not require a warrant. In this case they found child porn on the phone (note to anyone: DUMB!) .

While this case dealt with child porn, the same rules apply to anyone – you who may have photos or videos of your self or another in a sensitive situation. Or company trade secrets. Or information protected by attorney-client privilege.

A forensic search – connecting the device to a data extraction tool – is not routine and requires individualized suspicion but may not require a warrant.

The Fourth Circuit joined the First, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits in thinking this way. All say manual searches are okay and require no suspicion or warrant.

If you are crossing a border, US or other, and this is a concern, please contact us for guidance. Generally, don’t put anything in your phone across a border that you don’t want to see on the front page of the NY Times. Log out of all cloud services and even remove the apps. They are easy enough to reinstall. IF you are a US citizen you can refuse to unlock the phone. At that point customs can keep the phone but the cannot keep you. If you are not a US citizen, the rules are very different. So called hidden folders are definitely not hidden. Whether putting the phone in repair mode is enough to block Customs – my guess is not.

Credit: My Privacy Blog

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