If you are stopped at the border then you don't have such a right. British border force can just demand you give them keys to all your devices and hold them for 7 days, no court order needed.
Watch this if you're curious how that looks like:
Watch this if you're curious how that looks like:
> they're sitting there with these like blank A4 Bits of Paper writing down everything I'm telling them like you know bits of interest and it's exactly the same thing the Russians did when they interrogated me [...] to be honest interactions with the Russians have been pretty much the same as inter with the British government
I didn't do my research before going to the UK for the first time two months ago and just went with my gut feeling, that is, deleting files from my phone that I don't want to end up in a government system through Cellebrite's "accelerated justice" or whatnot. Never done this for any other country before (I cross borders on a weekly basis). Seeing this video and the Ugandan article from the sibling comment, that was definitely the right move
Facetious comment aside the only time I’ve had problems with border security anywhere is getting a large carpet back home from Azerbaijan. This was very interesting and required them to examine every square centimetre of it. China, US, UK, Europe all really boring. Russia was incompetent. They didn’t even check anything at all (2012)
I just use devices with ephemeral storage for crossing borders to save myself from having to do any research on any particular country’s device privacy practices.
Are they arresting you?
Because they have to let you in.
What if you say you forgot? I actually had times (after not having used my phone for a month or two) that I (& my muscles) forgot my PIN (not for the SIM card) and I had to do a factory reset.
An Immigration Officer may search you until they are satisfied you are a citizen. As long as you have a passport (or emergency travel document) listing you a citizen, this should be straightforward and they're unlikely to have grounds for any further search. At that point, you have been let into the country.
Customs Officers are much more likely to have grounds for a search — if they believe you are bringing prohibited material on the electronic device into the country (and "reasonable grounds" is low, as it typically is for customs — "you're acting kinda sus" is a reasonable ground), they can search your device. It is an offence to refuse a search, so while you've been admitted to the UK, you could be arrested for that offence.
This is all broadly comparable to most other countries immigration and customs laws; the UK is not an outlier here.
The problems with the UK are primarily things that apply to everyone, not just at the border — for example the Terrorism Act 2000 and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. But again, in the border case — that's basically all going to be _after_ you are admitted to the UK.