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New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

radionz.co.nz

341–350 of 647 posts

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. >It ruined the vacation for me... So what was the lesson?

Is there one? Are you looking for: * Don't leave the country? * Refuse and have the phone cracked anyway? * Refuse letting go of the phone and get arrested?

I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. Does anyone have a sense of how common this draconian approach is? I have a US passport and have been to about 25 countries on six continents and have never experienced this, but borders see such mind bogglingly high numbers pass through that I wouldn't say I have a robust set of data points.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#342

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.

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

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#343
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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.

>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.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you this hypothetical question instead: What if we have a "physical encryption" technology that allows encrypting physical objects so that X-ray scanners, drug detecting methods or metal detectors cannot see through them? Would customs be allowed to ask for the decryption key? Or should the customs just ignore whatever encrypted inside?

You can't blow a hole in an aeroplane's fuselage with somebody's mobile browser history.

Customs is way too late to be worrying about blowing a hole in an aeroplane, given you've already made it to the border by that point.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#345
post #342

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.

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

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.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#346

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.

People who have nothing to hide still shut their bathroom door.

And besides, laws change. I have nothing to hide today; who knows in three months?

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#347
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already "download guns". http://time.com/5344265/3d-printed-guns-legal/ I would be surprised if that's not possible for drugs or explosives in 5-10 years. Edit: Looks like they are already possible or at least on the way: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/you-could-soon-be-man... https://all3dp.com/custom-shaped-explosives-us-navy-3d-print...

You can "download" crappy, not very effective guns. And you still need to obtain the ammo (the actually lethal part) the old-fashioned way. I would very much be surprised if it becomes possible for drugs or explosives any time within my lifetime. Chemistry and physics just don't work that way.

I thought so too, but then I googled "3d print drugs" and "3d print explosives".

I think google doesn't censor results based on location? So you should see the same results.

Edit: To save your time and avoid polluting your search history:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/you-could-soon-be-man...

https://all3dp.com/custom-shaped-explosives-us-navy-3d-print...

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#348

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 (o…

very clever and it would almost certainly work. But what do you do for your phone?

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#349

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…

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.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#350
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, pictu…

> 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.

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.])
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