How to protect yourself from the phone search on the US border
Privacy and digital rights defenders greatly prefer the approach of traveling a travel device from the beginning, but they warn that a very clean and clean phone, such as a torch phone, can arouse suspicion.
“You have to seed the device. Use the phone for a day or even for a few hours. It just can’t be Clean Clean this is strange. However, many people have multiple accounts. One Rochat, the other healthy – added a journey. “
CYR, from Amnesty International, also points out that a real torch phone will be a “dumb” phone, which is not capable of running programs for encrypted communications. “The advantage we all have with smartphones is that you can communicate in encrypted,” Gar says. “People must be aware that any without encryption is less than a phone call or message on a program such as a signal.”
While a travel device does not need to use a pre -paid SIM card with cash, it should not share your regular phone number, as this number is probably related to all your original digital accounts. Buy a SIM card for your trip or just use the Wi-Fi device.
Traveling with your original phone
Another approach you can use to protect your device while crossing the borders is to correct your main smartphone before traveling. This includes deleting old photos and messages and storing them elsewhere, cleaning unnecessary programs and removing some programs in general or logging in with your original accounts and logging in with travel accounts.
Mohammed al -Maskasti, director of the digital security guide in the Access Now Law Group, says people should consider this type of cleansing before traveling. “I will look at your device and see what plans I need,” he says. “If I don’t need the app, I just delete it.”
El Muskati adds: He suggests people in particular to eliminate dating programs and everything related to LGBTQI communities, especially if they put themselves at greater risk of facing a device search. And in general, this approach is safe only if any program that may endanger you.
You can back up, erase it, create a travel device just using your phone as a travel phone, using your own phone, using your own phone, and backing up when you return home. This approach can be done but it is time consuming and creates more opportunities for operational security errors or what is known as “Opesc fails”. If you try to delete all your old and unwanted programs, but you lose one, you can end at the end of an old social media account or another historical service in which the data has forgotten. Messaging applications can be easily search -free to come back for years and can automatically save photos and files without realizing it. And if you back up all your data to the cloud and get out of your device, but are still logged into the cloud account below other services (such as the Google or Apple main account), you can be asked to get the data from the Cloud for inspection.
