Cell phone screening and personal privacy
Are there sacrifices we have to make with our personal property and privacy, or is the government taking “protection” a little too far?
This is exactly the question many Canadians are asking themselves in regards to a resurgent interest in border policies. The main policies being discussed are related to cell phones and other electronic devices and the possibility for these items to be seized and searched without a warrant.
Furthermore, there is the issue of having to give your personal password to the border official upon their request. This issue alone raises a lot of serious concerns about privacy, but what is even more astonishing is the complete lack of information provided by the Canadian government to allow us as Canadians to know and act upon our own rights.
CBC News relates the open-ended and ancient Canadian policies to the vastly different policy description of the United States. The U.S. has a fairly thorough and detailed policy on what they are and are not allowed to do with cellphones and electronic devices, and what exactly will happen with the information that is being taken from phones. However, the Canadian policy is extremely vague and relies heavily on older policies and rules that do not account for modern technology. Essentially, the issue boils down to old rules for new technology and a lack of information that is not being challenged by anyone.
First let us look at the issues of privacy before we delve into the policies themselves.
Why should border officials be allowed to see phones? The argument they could make is that it allows them to check that person for what they seem as dangerous or threatening content, and thus screen that person from entering the country. However, there is a vast difference between a phone and an item that causes danger itself, such as a weapon or illegal drugs.
A phone may contain sensitive material that could reveal a lot about a person—for some of us too much—but the phone itself is not necessarily dangerous. A counter-argument to this would be that a phone allows for the communication of dangerous people and this is information officials need to know. This seems like a weak argument, in my opinion, and the likelihood of the average person’s phone being needed for screening and searches seems very low.
I’m sure most people would feel extremely uncomfortable handing over their phones, with whatever personal content they may have on them, to a complete stranger. Most people do not even like having someone swipe right in their photo gallery—even this seems like a massive invasion of privacy. This puts messages, photos, and other content in the hands of a person with considerable authority and deciding power over whether or not you cross that border.
Now let’s see what the policy actually says, according to CBC reports of their interaction with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The CBSA website does not contain a lot of information on their policies, but it can be deduced simply that phones and electronic devices are viewed as “goods.” This seems a fairly simple explanation for a far more complex issue.
The border does not need a warrant for electronic devices. Furthermore, they do not report what they do with the information once it is obtained; the CBSA does not keep statistics on this issue. They also request that you give them the password to the device so that they can access it.The password request is one of the more uncertain elements to this problem. Specifically because a lot of people use the same password for multiple applications. Although the border officials would just be looking at your phone, there is always the concern of what would happen to your password after your border crossing.
Most of these policies seem fairly ancient and not suitable for the ever-evolving 21st century. This is a relatively quiet issue, because not many people would want to contest a border official. The border is nerve-wracking enough without getting into an ethical debate with the official who has the power to deny you access into another country.
Although this seems like a very specific and isolated issue, it speaks to a much larger one that the 21st century has not been able to fix yet: the issue of privacy or “protection.” This is an age-old debate that is full of grey areas, but with so much advancing technology and information online, it is now more relevant than ever.
Just ask yourself this question: if you were at the border, would you want your phone to be searched with what is currently on it?
Photo courtesy of Scazon via CC BY 2.0.