<story><title>Australian Border Force searched phones of 10k travellers in past two years</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/11/australian-border-force-abf-searching-phones-travellers-data</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>zensavona</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll just add a couple of details here since I have had this happen to me multiple times...&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m an Australian citizen and this applies just as much to me as a foreigner (for whom although I disagree about, I could make a reasonable argument for this being valid). Police require a warrant and&amp;#x2F;or reasonable suspicion of having committed a specific crime to search any part of you or your belongings. Border Force do not require this.&lt;p&gt;When they ask for the code, they will either:&lt;p&gt;- just open your device and rifle through your photos and messages in front of you, asking questions like &amp;quot;got a lot of photos of x, what&amp;#x27;s that about?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;who is y?&amp;quot;, ask you questions like &amp;quot;what are you doing in Australia? Who are you seeing? What&amp;#x27;s your relationship to them?&amp;quot; et cetera (even to me, a citizen who spends majority of my time abroad).&lt;p&gt;- Take it into another room for 20mins or so and presumably take a dump of the whole thing for further analysis. I once asked &amp;quot;what is done with this data and how long is it stored&amp;quot; and they refused to answer the question.&lt;p&gt;One time after refusing to hand over the code (politely) I was treated pretty aggressively, had my whole body searched (not strip searched, groped well all over), all my luggage taken apart etc. I received a letter in the mail that I could go and collect my phone at the airport after around 3 weeks. It seems unlikely they have some tech which allows exfiltration of data from a locked iPhone(?) so I&amp;#x27;m not sure what that&amp;#x27;s about. They claimed to me that they do indeed have this capability.&lt;p&gt;Since refusing to open the phone and letting them keep it I seem to be on some kind of list and have had a Border Force officer meet me at the baggage carousel a couple of times with the &amp;quot;please come with me sir&amp;quot; to my own private search area where a few of them are ready to search my luggage inside out. This seems to happen less recently since I have just given them the code. They have successfully made it inconvenient enough for me to comply.&lt;p&gt;One time years ago they did the same thing with my laptop. Since that incident they have only asked about my phone.</text></comment>
<story><title>Australian Border Force searched phones of 10k travellers in past two years</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/11/australian-border-force-abf-searching-phones-travellers-data</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>peutetre</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The department data reveals that close to 94% of the time people freely revealed their phone passcode to officers, despite there being no legal requirement to do so.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;There really needs to be better education in civics. It&amp;#x27;s so important to know your rights, especially when someone in a position of authority tries to abuse that authority.</text></comment>