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He's suing to get them back and for compensation for having to "temporarily" replace them, but even if he wins he probably shouldn't trust either device in the future (possibly more so for the laptop).
This is hard for me to comprehend. Does anyone have an idea of what 38% of the phones can have stored on them, that is illegal to have when crossing the border?
> He said the officer then confiscated his phone and laptop, and told him the items would be sent to a government lab which would try to crack his passwords and search his files. Hopefully they were powered down and used proper full-disk encryption.
> Officers uncovered a customs-related offence during 38 per cent of those searches, said the agency. I really want to understand what kind of digital data is considered a customs-related offence.
I never really understood the reason for seizing an electronic device anyway. Surely if something was important / secret enough it wouldn't be _on_ the phone. What are they looking for, exactly?
I’m sure there are tons of phones that have incriminating photographs in the default camera app, or incriminating text messages or saved voicemails or who knows what.
> He said the officer then confiscated his phone and laptop, and told him the items would be sent to a government lab which would try to crack his passwords and search his files. Hopefully they were powered down and used proper full-disk encryption.
Honestly, that's not something you can expect from regular non-power users. Full-disk encryption isn't enabled by default on most consumer laptops, and few regular users go out of their way to set it up.
> Officers uncovered a customs-related offence during 38 per cent of those searches, said the agency. This is hard for me to comprehend. Does anyone have an idea of what 38% of the phones can have stored on them, that is illegal to have when crossing the border?
Generally it's things like text messages from friends/family/potential employers that lead agents to think the person isn't going to abide by their non-work/short term visa.
I never really understood the reason for seizing an electronic device anyway. Surely if something was important / secret enough it wouldn't be _on_ the phone. What are they looking for, exactly?
He's suing to get them back and for compensation for having to "temporarily" replace them, but even if he wins he probably shouldn't trust either device in the future (possibly more so for the laptop).
Seems risky for the government to put any firmware/hardware implants on those devices. The user is naturally going to be suspicious of it because the government had unrestricted access for days/weeks. So there's a high chance that the user might not even use it or will send it to an expert for analysis. If discovered, it's going to look extra bad for the government because there's no doubt that they did it.