I will be entering the US in October to work for about a year and half as a visiting researcher. I will be accompanied by my partner and his two children.
I am very scared on what to expect at the border because of all the stories I hear about detentions, refusals, etc.
My concerns are:
- Do they ask everyone to unlock their phones and download EVERYTHING in there for later analysis?
- Related to point 1., refusing to unlock and give access will make you suspect and they refuse entry?
- Do they also ask you to unlock your laptop? I have stuff encrypted there as I often have to process sensitive patient data for a project I am working.
- Do they do a complete biometric data collection of you and the kids?
Also, how do we conduct ourselves at the border entry to avoid getting absolutely shafted?
P.S.: I am not in a position to call off the trip. Visa is ready and tickets are brought.
It is risky to carry encrypted devices across the border which you are not prepared to give them the passwords to.
In most cases they won’t ask you to decrypt anything, but they do sometimes randomly and when they do if you refuse then you can/will be denied entry and/or they’ll keep the device(s) indefinitely.
One approach to avoid this problem is to create an encrypted disk image (your operating system hopefully comes with a program to do this, you shouldn’t need to install anything) and then store it online somewhere and then download it after you’ve crossed the border. Read about how to pick a strong yet memorable passphrase.
It was reported last year that the US was going to start requiring that you disclose all of your social media accounts used in the previous five years, but that did not actually go into effect in December as it had been announced that it would. Something along those lines could still happen later this year though: Here and here are articles from March and May of this year about it.