Also just read that an appeals court upheld the government right to search your phones and retain any data they find despite the 4th Amendment and other privacy protections.

I can't travel anyway because my passport has the wrong gender marker now despite my appearance, genitals, etc. But last time I traveled domestically even, I backed up my phone with the built in GrapheneOS backup as well as some manual backups to a NAS I have at home. Then wipe the phone, install only the basics including not installing my Vaultwarden client which would potentially give them access to all of my passwords, and then restore everything when I get home. It's not perfect and takes a lot of extra work. If I ever get to travel more, next time I upgrade my phone I thought about not trading in the old one and keep that only for travel. Problem is that everything is eSIMs these days, so it's harder to just switch phones out than it used to be. I do wish backups were as easy as they were back when we could root phones without breaking so many apps. Being able to backup the entire partition was so much easier.

Rule #1 Don't travel to the usa

Just dont go to the US....

i've never had a problem going into EU from canada

I have two phones which is only because I wouldn't be upset if this phone was stolen or lost or broken unlike my main phone. My travel phone is an older and cheap Google pixel phone on which I installed Graphene. I use it regularly to read books from my local library. I do not bring it with me anywhere other than travel. On this phone I also:

• Do not log into anything other than the library app which uses a random username as the login. No email or anything attached to it beyond my home address.
• Ensure that ADB is NOT enabled.
• Require a pin to unlock the phone. No biometrics alone. Ever.
• Install signal for all communication. Lock it behind a pin that is not my phone unlock pin.
• Any and all files that I create on this device have their exif stripped and are automatically encrypted using automation software then sent to my S3 bucket or home server depending on the nature of the files and their size after I connect to wifi somewhere.
• Transfer my service plan to this device.
• Install apps only from obtanium that are verified to match the hash signatures from the distributor.
• The phones drive is encrypted
• While in line for TSA I turn the phone off to which it will remain until I am at my gate.

I have had issues in the past with TSA and my phone with a "random" search. They requested I unlock my phone. I did not, and requested a warrant and will not speak more than my rights and that I will only speak through legal counsel should they be able to produce a warrant. They searched me and my belongings over the course of a few hours. They can eat my ass.

In addition all of my personal machines including my steam deck and my laptop are also encrypted and secured using FOSS software including Linux as the OS. I have nothing to hide, but I'm also smart enough to not provide them with anything they could twist out of context or use against me.

I turn off biometrics and power down. They can ask for the unlock pin, I can decline until they produce a warrant and I can request an lawyer. My risk profile is sufficiently accommodated.

I can see someone with a different risk profile, say, an online presence showing vocal criticism against Trump and goons, and/or not white and/or not a native born US citizen and/or has a travel history to muslim-majority countries might want to take further measures.

I've just skimmed headlines and seen a short or two on the guy who gave LEOs the distress pin. I'm not sure why he didn't decline to give them his pin until they produced a warrant, but I think giving a destruction pin was not the brightest idea. But also, fuck the cops and double fuck border cops playing these racist, fascist games with people's lives.

Cloud-backup your phone, factory reset it, set it up again with a phone number, a different messenger app to the one you currently use and download your idk, 20 most recent pictures to your galery and set one as your background.

1. You will still be able to make phone calls if needed

2. You will still be able to send messages on for example Telegram even tho you usually use Signal

3. The phone will not look like a burner as it has some personal content on it

4. The phone will look personalized and thus less suspicous together with point 3

Edit: You don't even have to actually set them up or even open them at all, but maybe even download a shopping list, a notes app, two games, all in all it should take like 10 minutes to make your phone look less suspicous as opposed to the other advice to just factory reset it.

I think I'm at low risk.

I power my phone off prior to arriving in the US and keep it off until I leave the airport.

Under US case law, you can be compelled to give up a thumb print or face ID with a search warrant. But you cannot be compelled to give an unlock code, because the code information is testimony, and you have the right to remain silent.

If they insist on seizing my phone unless I unlock it, my plan is to ask for a lawyer, shut the fuck up, let them seize the phone or whatever, then sue them later to return it.

This plan works for me because I'm a US citizen, and I have an absolute right to enter the country. If you are not a citizen or LPR the local CBP officer has the discretion to refuse admission even if you have a visa. So that's a real consequence to non cooperation.

Don't lie to the feds about not having a phone if you really have one. That's a separate crime all by itself.

burner seems safest and fastest

Or you could backup all you data somewhere accessible over a secure connection, wipe your phone before go anywhere, and restore the data once out of the country. You would need to do the same before coming back. Backup, wipe, travel, restore.

Consumes a lot of time (and data) which probably isn't worth it for short trips where your mobile data is costing you. But if you'll be gone a while and will have access to an unmetered network connection, it's feasible.

It accomplishes the same thing as wiping your phone at customs, but planned and executed in-advance instead of panic-wiping it in front of them. 🤷

If you've got the money, blank burner phone and/or laptop. If you get questioned just say your regular devices are expensive and you were afraid of losing them/damaging them while traveling

I typically back up everything important on my phone the week before. Then uninstall all Apps I don't want scanned if needed (password managers, banking, etc.) This allows me to worry slightly less...🤏

Wipe then restore from backup when you get back

I recently traveled and I brought my old iphone 6 and made sure my physical SIM was compatible with both and checked with my carrier as well. One issue I keep running into is that the digital boarding pass and email communications for updates from the airline just make issues like flight delays, reroutes, lost baggage, or missed flights so much faster to deal with, especially if there are minute by minute updates and a time crunch in an airport I'm not familiar with. I guess the best answer there is to have a dedicated email address for airline comms and make that the only connected account for your backup smartphone.

If you have good backups of the phone to say something like nextcloud or a other cloud service. Wipe the phone clean before travel. Then just give them the pin. Nothing to see at all. Then pull down a backup once passed the border control.

I mean they can search you for a phone so saying you don’t have one doesn’t seem like a viable option. Having a burner that you freely offer up seems like a better option. I know that some journalists who travel to dangerous parts of the world will often do this (along with many other things) to try and protect themselves.

I'd probably use a burner. Out of principle.

But! I think it is important to keep the risk in perspective too. For most ppl, the chance is tiny. Could happen. Almost certainly won't. There are about 55K device searches / yr, and most of those are shallow. Only a few were deep. That sounds like a lot, until you realize there are 260 million international travelers / yr. Edit -> for the USA alone. That's around 0.02% who even get the shallow search.

Ofc the risk may be a LOT higher for certain ppl. Reporters say. So keep that in mind too. Assess your own risk with open eyes! For some it will be far more than 0.02%. You're a reporter, better have your shit sorted! But that also means the risk is lower than 0.02% for the rest.

Tiny chance for most ppl, But nothing wrong with being careful out of principle.

I was outside the EU in Scotland. I had the fortune of being privileged enough for the UK Border force to divert us to the ePassport gates so that the only thing I had to show was just my passport and look at the camera.

Same in Thailand, but there we had to go through manned passport control and they also asked for my fingerprints and my passport but they didn't searched my personal belongings.

In Schengen they don't even check what you have with you, unless you don't look white enough and don't know wtf you're doing here.

Backup, dump SIM, wipe, load ghost account.

Wipe, load primary account, retire from backup load sim.