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

radionz.co.nz

321–330 of 647 posts

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

#321
post #51

> The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide access - whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Does the Law in NZ have any provisions against self-incrimination? The US has the 5th Amendment, some countries in the Americas signed the American Convention on Human Rights. How does NZ deal with this issue? Can't it be consi…

The 5th amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens and doesn't mean as a US citizen that your device can't be confiscated on potentially frivolous suspicions.

The 5th amendment doesn't apply to citizens, either. It applies to the government.

And the instructions to the government make no mention of citizenship status. "...nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

The 4th amendment likewise applies to the government, and makes no mention of citizenship.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The 14th amendment: "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The government, of course, holds that physical searches at border crossings are reasonable searches, and therefore do not require warrants. Since Riley v. California (2014), SCotUS established that searching the data contents of electronic devices is unreasonable to do after an arrest, and therefore requires probable cause and warrant. They still have not applied that to searches of border-crossers' electronics, and different federal appeals circuits currently hold different positions on it. Hopefully, SCotUS will soon rule that forensic analysis of electronics at border crossings requires individualized suspicion, but the current nominee debacle does not give me much confidence.

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

#322
post #98

>"It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said. They will see my genitals and the genitals of many other people. Not sure how not going accessing my off-phone backups is supposed to be better. This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months seriously considering new…

Kia Ora. I hope you still consider New Zealand. We have an island mentality, which means we treat borders pretty seriously. We don't have a wall, we have the Pacific ocean as our border, and Australia (known as the West Island). If the idea that 540 people out of 3.7M international visitors get their phones inspected worries you, then that's a valid concern. For perspective, we issued over 9000 biosecurity infringeme…

> For perspective, we issued over 9000 biosecurity infringements for people bringing in fresh fruit, meat, honey, etc.

Which is fine, completely reasonable, and unrelated. This isn't necessarily about the number of people getting their phones inspected. A huge problem is with there being no oversight or accountability, which can be abused at several levels.

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

#323
This is very stupid, imho, because it works just as long as people don't know about it. If I'm a "digital criminal", tomorrow I'll simply bring an empty laptop or phone and have my backup sent to my destination (or directly from the network). Pointless and annoying.

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

#324

Happened to a female friend flying from Toronto to visit me in Mexico. Because she had a connecting flight in US, a US agent went through her phone. (Classic mistake of entering the US unless absolutely neccessary) Guy was reading her Tinder messages and accusing her of being a prostitute. He brought up some saucy messages and would say things like “girls don’t do this kind of stuff for free...” Finally handed her ba…

That's both disturbing and pretty much the level of professionalism I expect from CBP. I wish someone were to cataloging these sorts of incidents, rather than just reading about them in HN threads.

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

#325

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…

>...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?

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

#326
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's true for all encryption and privacy technology, it has dual use. We as a society must find the right balance and say, ok, there's no reasonable justification for owning 1 pound of plutonium, but there is a legitimate case for high encryption and privacy. This forum largely believes that the balance struck by New Zealand - that you don't have the right to data privacy when traveling - is completely unaccept…

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?

Physically, there's constraint on what I am exposing. Digitally, it's my entire life. The bar for a search must be much higher to reflect that. Most people here are not used to dealing with a corrupt officer. Imagine a scenario where you own a property and the police officer next door desperately wants it and he finds a loop hole to block your access to the street (and does more horrible things to get you to vacate your house). Now imagine what he'll do if he had your phone and work backwards from there - even innocent things like a flirty message with someone can potentially ruin someone's life - it doesn't have to be illegal.

The justice system and separation of powers acts as checks and balances from anyone (good or bad) being harassed unless there's a strong reason why. Get a warrant with a limited scope and then do the search.

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

#327
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are plenty of backup tools available on the internet, this isn't really a problem with Android" Name one and describe the process. So far everything I have tried takes hours and often loses a bunch of settings that need to be restored manually. It requires significant amounts of work. Also it seems most tools need a rooted phone

> Also it seems most tools need a rooted phone A minor inconvenience given the legal risks. If you don't want to deal with that just get yourself cheap used gear dedicated to travel purposes.

You still haven't named a single tool or process.

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

#328
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they should be allowed to do so. That would eradicate drug trafficking and cross-border terrorism. I would say the benefit is too good, weighing against privacy.

Actually, it would simply make terrorists avoid official border crossings. They could, for example, pay a human trafficker $2000 to get them over the border with Mexico. Of course, you would then request for brain scanning technology to be more widely employed and that brain scanners be installed in the subway, on buses, gas stations and any other place drug dealers and terrorists could happen to go by. I think we al…

You know I used to question why on earth would Trump want to "build a wall". But I think your comment (along with the previous comments) somehow made a good justification for it.

Anyway, it is quite apparent that we have fundamentally different views on these issues, so let's agree to disagree and call it a day.

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

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a HUGE difference between the contents of your luggage (some clothes, maybe some souvenirs, etc.) and all of your digital accounts (personal pictures, credit card numbers, access to banking, home address, etc.) I don't really care if the TSA look at my underwear, but I don't want anyone, especially low level employees, having access to every single aspect of my life.

You are classically Missing The Point. Historically, your luggage would contain personal pictures, credit card numbers, general banking statements, generally personal information, etc. The medium in which this information is stored and carried around has changed. The need to inspect what you're bringing into the country has not. These processes didn't originally come about because people wanted to inspect your 5 diff…

If you bring a suitcase full of bananas in to Australia, customs will take them and detroy them, and probably prosecute you.

If you bring an electronic device in to Australia full of 0s and 1s that can be decoded to display as pictures of bananas, customs will just think your a bananaphile and shuffle you along.

Digital goods are fundamentally different.

You can’t cross the border, buy a suitcase, then download a bunch of bananas to fill it.

You can cross the border, buy a phone, then download instructions from your terrorist boss.

Whatever else these digital searches are I don’t know, but they’re certainly ham fisted to the point of embarrassment for the agents and agencies.

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

#330

I have been thinking of going back to live in NZ to be a software engineer there, but now... uh, no . Such a shame, as it's a really nice country with very smart people. Granted, it's been very "totalitarian" when it comes to immigration for a long time. Not that I don't think they have the right to do this, but when I went to live there with my kiwi girlfriend, I had to give them actual copies of letters she and I s…

As a New Zealander, I'd say we're unashamed in trying to balance the welfare of our citizens with growth opportunities from new immigrants. If you're likely to be a drain on the public healthcare system, then you're not likely to get permission to live here. Why? It's not fair to those people who have already paid into the system, to subsidise someone who hasn't. And we are picky. There's no visa lottery here. A poin…

Perfect system, oh boy a true utopia! And then you guys have Peter Thiel getting citizenship after visiting for 12 days :)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/new-zealand-ga...

Edit: oh sorry, he's "a great ambassador for New Zealand"

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