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

radionz.co.nz

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

#351

Post by _jcwu »

jliptzin wrote: post #233

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…

If you watch the show "Border Security: Canada's Front Line" you will see how often this is the norm. It's on Netflix as well.

I really think these are dangerous times and for some reason I only ever expected this from the US but never from Canada or New Zealand.

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

#352

Post by DoreenMichele »

woofcat wrote: post #271

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.

While I generally agree with some of the sentiments expressed here -- such as "People who have nothing to hide still shut their bathroom door." -- maybe we could lighten up and not pile onto this comment, given that it is on the side of not really wanting to give over this info and having cleaned out the phone recently, etc.

Focusing entirely on that one phrase -- I have nothing to hide -- twists the meaning intended, I think, especially given the manner in which it is being done here.

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

#353

Post by tzmudzin »

clarkmoody wrote: post #214
jsilence wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about "probable cause" or "innocent until proven guilty"? Why would I have to accept being strip searched without a warrant?

At a border, you have no rights.

Yes, that's the actual problem.

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

#354

Post by jrockway »

paradite wrote: post #252
jrockway wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a digital diplomatic pouch though, it's called "the cloud". Anyone that wants to smuggle illegal bits and bytes into a country can simply do it over the Internet. The reality is, nothing on your phone can cause actual danger to anyone in the way that guns or a bomb can.

I find this cloud argument rather weak. So you have two ways getting illegal contents into a country. Instead of preventing both measures (which is what governments are trying to do [1]), you are suggesting ignoring one of the ways because the other way currently works? The whole point of the customs and laws is to prevent any sort of measures to getting illegal contents into the country, either physically or via the…

Yes. Because it's too intrusive to search people's phones without probable cause and a warrant. I don't doubt that searching everyone's phone will result in criminal convictions. I do doubt the value to society in doing that.

3d printed guns are a simple bug in US law -- guns are controlled, but ammunition is not. Easy fix, make the ammo require a permit. Homemade guns are no longer a problem.

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

#355

Post by ttty »

NullPrefix wrote: post #264
jliptzin wrote: post #233

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?

Buy new phone, put random things there to look real and give them that phone instead.

Or wipe your phone, restore backup from cloud on arrival.

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

#357

Post by mark212 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #12
jackhack wrote: post #4

It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…

totalitarian purgatory Nitpick: in Catholic dogma purgatory is a place of purification, those in purgatory know that they are there for a reason and only for a certain time, afterwards they enter heaven. Hell on the other hand, is for eternity and ugly. That's why the two are easily distinguished in their iconography, both involve imagery of flames, but souls in purgatory look joyful and those in hell look despondent…

sounds almost exactly like going through customs at the border.

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

#358

Post by zodiakzz »

jliptzin wrote: post #233

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…

How can they possibly "crack" the phone password? Won't the phone get locked after a few failed tries?

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

#359

Post by chrisper »

m_eiman wrote: post #305

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…

It's probably obstruction of Justice.

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

#360

Post by Darthy »

grkvlt wrote: post #121
jackhack wrote: post #4

It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…

Lets not get too excited. There were about 40 million passengers transiting NZ airports last year, according to Wikipedia.[0] The article says roughly 540 devices were searched in the same time period. That's 0.00135% or basically a dozen people per million being searched. That hardly seems like totalitarian overreach. In fact it seems quite restrained and pretty reasonable - and presumably must be intelligence led,…

In other words, there is a 0.00135% chance you will be fined $5000.

...anybody wanna sell insurance?

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