New Zealand: Hand over phone password at border or face $3,200 fine - Sensationalist Headlines

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/03/asia/new-zealand-customs-passwords-intl/ Rights groups have denounced a new law in New Zealand under which travelers can be fined thousands of dollars if they refuse to allow border officials access to their phone. Under the Customs and Excise Act 2018, which came into force this week, officials will be able to demand travelers unlock any electronic device so it can be searched. Anyone who refuses can face prosecution and a fine of up to $3,200 (5,000 NZD). Officials can also retain devices and potentially confiscate them from travelers who refuse to allow a search at the border. "This is good, we don't need tourist scum here" - Probably Boilrig

what are they specifically searching for?

Nudes

What a piece of shit law honestly. Who else does this hurt other than innocent people? If there was a terrorist or something you bet they'd take the fine instead of giving up their phones. Doubt this law is going to last long

so much for visiting nz

Travel with burner phone, got it.

This is only going to get fucking worse isn't it?

Take lots of ass pictures and layer it on your home lock page and hand them the phone, they'll never see it coming.

This is the case of "who cares nothing to hide But if you have something to hide, you'd have it encrypted and anyone searching for it won't find it because you know what you're fucking doing" Want the password to your email? Just uninstall your email app before the gate Everything's on the server for you to log back into later. You're probably using protonmail or something similar. You know the laws before you get there, so if they think you are hiding emails, you'd also just have a burner address using the normal email client with every-day emails, spam, chain emails from your parents Profressionals know what they're doing. serious criminals know what to expect and any precautions to take

So fucking stupid, as if someone involved in crime would walk into airport with their phone carrying incriminating information instead of putting that data in an encrypted folder and emailing it acorss borders.

In a digital age where more and more reliance is put on devices like your phone/laptop, this is basically like asking every tourist to come in and stretch their butthole open in front of the inspectors.

Yeah, what the hell is this supposed to catch anyway? Are they just going to scroll through my pictures and- oh look what we found! Deep in my gallery of dick pics, I hid a .jpg of my elaborate plans to overthrow the NZ government! I hope looking through all the dicks was worth it for the border agent

evidence of communications with terrorist groups i'd assume, since terrorists just have whatsapp chats open with their fellow terrorists

you know, a tiny part of me just wants to fill my phone with tons of gay furry porn if practices like this become commonplace.

Good thing I've been there before this. Lovely country otherwise though

I worked in the mobile phone industry for 5 years and I can tell you from first hand experience you do not want to go rummaging around through peoples phones as you will come across things that you wish you could bleach from memory from time to time. Hope they give their border workers a good health plan that covers therapy :V

Ok well no tourism for you then

Violate the privacy of thousands to catch like 3 stupid people.

About a month ago our CEO, CFO, and another senior employee we're heading abroad (to China). Our IT Head, my boss, refused to let them take their standard equipment with them. He was ready for a fight with the CEO because it was not safe. They finally capitulated and took burner phones and laptops that were not allowed to talk back to any of our infrastructure except through specific secured methods. The expectation was that they absolutely would be compromised going there.

From Lord of the Rings to Lord of the Ringtones

But what if you tell them the wrong password and can't remember?

You have a phone you use daily and then you suddenly forget your password when asked. They would totally buy that.

Custom rom that hides everything when you login with a specific password.

That'd be something I would do. Heck, turn everything into goatse. Background, contact pictures, even icons. 10 Google Chrome tabs with just that picture on all of them. I'm good at awkward situations. I used to work at the airport (in a electronics store) so I had to pass through TSA everyday. Every so often they do random swabs on your hands to check for "bomb" chemicals. Well, I got pulled aside one time and I set the alarm off. I just used hand sanitizer so that caused it without a doubt. Well, they have to do a full frontal (clothed) pat down in a super small room. Needless to say, just about every crotch, rape, and sex joke came out in rapid succession. As the door opened to leave, I made sure to say "I hope that was as good for you as it was for me". Needless to say, I never got the random swab ever again. But anyways, this law is dumb.

Do you think they would know you have a second phone on you if you hand them a crappy travel phone instead?

There are people that post their crime on instagram and then wonder how they get caught you're thinking about it from a point of view that understands computers, you seriously doubt how fucking stupid people are with this stuff. In fact, there are pedophiles who get their laptops confiscated, but not their computers (Not a part of the warrant) and end up allowing cops to access it during a search thinking that if they do it in good faith it'll help them or some stupid shit, and the cops immediately find even more CP.

Jokes on them, my phone has no password at all.

Apparently they have to already have reasonable evidence of criminal activity before they're allowed to do this, so anyone who gets this would theoretically have already triggered alarms by dodging questions or getting tracked by drug dogs. It's not going to be something that happens to everyone who enters the country. That said, this is still retarded. And the worst thing is that this is the first I'm hearing about it - fucking no-one around here is mentioning it. I saw maybe one news article as a minor story that got swept under the next day. People here like to think that things like this don't happen here because both China and the US are so much worse by comparison, and because the new government has a glowing well-liked face that says good things and is actually pushing through new shit, unlike the previous government. I'd go protest on the streets about this nonsense but as far as I know, there are none.

They don't search your phone, they clone the entire contents of your phone so they can later look into it if they care, run some very basic automated searches, and inevitably lose all your data including your complete GPS history, contacts, personal information and medical data on the internet because an underpaid government employee put it in an unencrypted amazon s3 bucket.

My phone's like that already packed enough to deter any thief.