His employer is Apple. I was always worried about this same scenario when traveling with an Apple-owned laptop..
Does Apple not have a policy for this? I would suggest asking them.
I asked my employer when I joined (even though my job had absolutely zero international travel). They had a simple policy: Always comply with law enforcement in whatever country you're in: If they want me to enter my laptop password, my company directs me to cooperate.
It would be scary if Apple does not have a policy on this.
1. Comply with legal government requests (in any country; there's also a pre-approval form for international travel with a corporate laptop, and a list of countries that they will not let you take your corporate laptop to at all).
2. If you are a US citizen, the US must let you back in even if you don't consent to a search, though they can seize your devices in the process.
The "legal" qualifier on #1 means I'd want access to a lawyer, which they denied....
How is this policy supposed to work? Seems like it would a huge pain point for any sort of travel.
Most employees have some sort of approval to do this.
> I asked the agents if I could speak to my employer or an attorney before unlocking my devices. This request seemed to aggravate the customs officers. They informed me that I had no right to speak to an attorney at the border despite being a U.S. citizen, and threatened me that failure to immediately comply with their demand is a violation of federal criminal code 18 USC 111.