Comments on: Handbook explaining your electronic privacy rights at the Canadian border from the BCCLA

By: Ant

Ant — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:44:00 +0000

Let’s not go anywhere anymore!

By: elix

elix — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:51:00 +0000

This. If it’s feasible, do this. (If, on the other hand, your daily business requires 60GB of stuff on the hard drive, not so much.)

By: elix

elix — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:50:00 +0000

I suppose that setting your desktop wallpaper to be the complete text of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be just taunting Canada Customs.

By: elix

elix — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:47:00 +0000

My netbook has a dead SSD, so I removed it. I boot it, in the interim, off a USB stick. If I were to be crossing the border in either direction, the two would be packed in separate bags.

Go ahead and inspect my machine all you want.

By: pKp

pKp — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Simple, low-tech and efficient. I like it.
Might wanna copy a few files on the account so that the border cops don’t get too suspicious when they open it and all they find is a copy of the Bill of Rights…

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:35:00 +0000

So, if your laptop has hardware-based HDD locking/encryption, you should activate it. So then the border guards won’t even be able to ghost it.

Check your user’s manual.

By: Rindan

Rindan — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 06:28:00 +0000

Don’t cross borders with anything you don’t want a government to steal. It is as simple as that. Governments have gotten nasty and don’t give two shits about your civil liberties. If you want to defend them, the only thing you can do is cross borders with empty devices, and then use the magic of encryption and the intertubes to restore your device once you are past the border.

I have a trip coming up over seas soon and I am pretty tempted to just save an image of my Android phone (the phone is rooted and running CyanogenMod), wipe the thing, and then restore it once I am past the border. There is nothing bad on my phone, none-the-less, I would prefer not to have all of my life and contacts in someone’s government file on me.

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:35:00 +0000

Now I’m thinking of clever ways around this sort of thing. They can’t force you to hand over a password, but they can refuse you entry if you don’t? How about creating two accounts (and setting your machine up so that you have to type a username rather than click an icon with one) and if you get asked, give them the username and password to the dummy account. There are lots of things you could do to try and keep your data safe without having to defiantly and (what they’d call) suspiciously refuse to let them see your stuff.

By: gmcmullen

gmcmullen — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:31:00 +0000

Cory – should add that you might also get arrested (or refused entry, if not Canadian) for failing to provide your password if they are feeling especially mean. We don’t think you can be forced to hand over the password, but it’s all new in Canada.

By: gmcmullen

gmcmullen — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:27:00 +0000

Careful! A “break in eye contact” can be an indicator that gets you hauled in for extra screening.

By: theophrastvs

theophrastvs — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:26:00 +0000

how-to manual designed to help you keep your data and devices secure when you cross the border into Canada.

..as someone that crosses the border there fairly frequently i never had any problem with the heading “into Canada” direction… it’s the “coming back home” transition that provides the need for caution and concern (“yessir, nosir, thank you sir” [keep eyes passively downwards])

By: Ianto_Jones

Ianto_Jones — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Better go ahead and add the UK too, because there it is a crime not to decrypt your hard drive when a border officer requests you do so. No court order required.

By: RhymingObituary

RhymingObituary — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:12:00 +0000

Canada is added to the list of nations I won’t be travelling too then, the only other entry is the US.