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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

I always turn my phone off before going through customs. This temporarily disables fingerprint unlocking and requires my password instead. My understanding is that it is legally possible to compel you to unlock your phone with a fingerprint, but not possible to compel you to provide your password.

If they threaten to seize my phone, I'll let them. I have plenty of spares and can afford a new one if it comes down to it.

Of course, many people don't have the means to make this a practical approach.

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> My understanding is that it is legally possible to compel you to unlock your phone with a fingerprint, but not possible to compel you to provide your password.

True for police, but less clear for border crossings.

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/02/16/border-agent-unloc...

> They don't even need a warrant. It's clear the government does not need a warrant to search the phone based on a constitutional law, a set of cases called the Border Search Exceptions.

The fact that they don't need a warrant is irrelevant when there are technological measures which require your cooperation to make it happen. The question is, what happens if you don't cooperate?

For fingerprint authentication, I believe it's been established that they can hold you until you cooperate.

For passwords, they can't. "The second question is, can they detain you until you hand over your passcode? They probably have some power to detain you for a little bit — maybe for an hour or two — not forever. They can't hold at the border and say, ‘Alright, you're living here until you hand over your passcode.’"

Then the question is whether they can follow up with some sort of punishment after the fact if you continue to refuse. According to that article, it hasn't been established yet, but I'm confident that it would come out in my favor, and furthermore that they would think similarly and not even try it.

As far as I can figure, if your phone is powered off and requires a passcode to run, the only thing they can do is confiscate your device. They cannot bar a US citizen from entry into the country - even if you have no passport or identification, they can only fine you for entering without it.

If they confiscate your device I'm not sure how long they can keep it off the top of my head, but I would operate under the assumption that you're not getting it back. There are legal remedies for this sort of warrantless seizure, but I'm guessing that there's a mechanism through which they could charge the phone itself with a crime in order to circumvent the Fourth Amendment, a'la asset forfeiture.

Right, that's my understanding as well. I'd lose the device but retain my freedom and (whatever shreds remain of) privacy, which is an acceptable tradeoff to me given the relatively low odds of this happening.

You can remotely wipe most phones today, no?

which requires the phone to connect to the internet, which i doubt the TSA/DHS/CBP will let happen after confiscating your phone

The Fourth Amendment is interpreted quite differently in border zones; the side of the Government is generally weighed significantly heavier "because terrorism".

They can have my iPhone. I can get another and restore from iCloud. Good luck to them to do anything useful with it. Sure I might have to wait for a bit but they have to let me in.

you have to give your fingerprint in order to pass US immigration, surely the correct answer is "I have already given you the password" .... and then let them figure out how to extract it from their system and apply it to your phone ....

Border Guards generally have (or act like they have) tremendous leeway to detain, confiscate, and harass. Sometimes you'll heard the border (and 100 miles inland from it) as a Constitution free zone.

Indeed, but as far as I know it does not go so far as to allow them to hold me until I give up my password. They can hold me temporarily, and they can confiscate my phone, but that's it.

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