Warrantless Electronic Device Searches

Warrantless phone, laptop searches at the US border hit record levels

An article on ZDNet reported that: "new figures released Friday [January 5, 2018] reveal that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers searched 30,200 devices -- an increase of about 60 percent year-over-year -- between October 2016 and September 2017. One leading Democratic senator says newly-enacted directives explicitly allow border officials to try to bypass the password or encryption on a device without reasonable suspicion."

CBP published its updated 'Border Search of Electronic Device Directive' on January 5, 2018. The guidance states in part: "In the course of a basic search, with or without suspicion, an Officer may examine an electronic device and may review and analyze information encountered at the border..." To understand the guidelines that apply to search of your electronic devices at the border, it is recommended that you read the Border Search of Electronic Device Directive.
 
In 2017, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published guidance on "Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border: Protecting the Data On Your Devices and In the Cloud"

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) discussed the question "Can Border Agents Search Your Electronic Devices?" in a 2017 article. In this article the ACLU recommended the following steps to help protect yourself when crossing the United States border:

• Travel with as little data and as few devices as possible.
• Encrypt devices with strong and unique passwords and shut them down when crossing the border.
• Store sensitive data in a secure cloud-storage account.
• Upload sensitive photos on your camera to your password-protected laptop or a cloud-storage account.
• Turn on airplane mode for all of your electronic devices before crossing a border checkpoint.

Similar advice was provided in articles in the New York Times and in Wired.

New York Times - Crossing the Border? Here’s How to Safeguard Your Data From Searches
Wired - A Guide to Getting Past Customs with Your Digital Privacy Intact