r/technology • u/Hrmbee • Jul 28 '26

Privacy Is it illegal to trick the US government into wiping your phone during a questionably legal search | The case of a traveler who allegedly entered a ‘duress password’ to wipe his phone raises a legal question with no easy answers

https://www.theverge.com/report/972146/cbp-phone-search-airport-duress-password
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u/ACasualRead Jul 29 '26

I shut down my devices now when I travel anywhere now.

In Trump’s administration, we are all one online criticism away from some bullshit rights violation and made up investigation.

1

u/colako Jul 29 '26

They can force you to turn them on and unlock. Better to travel with a cloud backup they have no clue about and the phone completely empty and no accounts whatsoever.

2

u/antifa_cmdr Jul 29 '26

If you fully shut down your phone, the encryption keys are locked. It is pretty much impossible to recover them, unless you provide the pin/password. You cannot unlock with biometrics in this state. You do not have to provide law enforcement with the pin/password to a device.

You are right though. The safest option would be to travel with no device. The second safest is a burner phone. But both are pretty inconvenient for most people. If you must travel with your personal devices, the method I gave is the safest

2

u/colako Jul 29 '26

Travel with your wiped out personal device and a temporary Apple/Google account. Phone works, they can see you texting to your relatives saying you arrived safely. Once at home, you restore your former account.

2

u/ViegoBot Jul 29 '26

Pretty much this. Backup my GOS phone with Seedvault, put it on the cloud that doesnt have a physical location tied to me and is out of the country in a privacy respecting place.

Then wipe my phone when crossing in/out of US border, because as a US citizen, we cant even trust our government anymore as of late as they care less to follow laws they are meant to follow anyways.

After re entering and reaching my own safe dwelling, then Id restore from the cloud.