Travelers to New Zealand who refuse a digital strip search will be fined $5000

From the article dated 10-1-2018:

"New Zealand's Customs and Excise Act 2018 went into effect today. That means travelers who refuse to give their phone or laptop password to customs officials will be fined NZ$5000. In addition, their devices will be confiscated and forensically searched."


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I am wondering how this will affect, if at all, persons wanting to travel to New Zealand. On one hand it seems like an overreach to a person's right to privacy, on the other hand, they say they are trying to stop the spread of terrorism which of course is their country's right to do.

Any thoughts or comments?

a reply to: manta78

It's not just new Zealand, this all started in the U. S and has made its way across the globe.

a reply to: manta78

as a kiwi who considers home the worlds utopia, this is a step too far.

So you pay a $5000 fine if you dont want to give your pins/passwords to customs so they can search your phone?
- thats wrong on every level.

Maybe its a under handed attempt to stop people coming to NZ.. it is a small nation.. western travellers arent the 'delight' they used to be. NZ did recently stop foreign ownership of homes..

The southern hemisphere's switzerland maybe?

I might move back home.. I miss NZ

i smell a " business oprtunity " for someone :

create an app that can " mirror " a phone - and create an instant " new phone " in a` previously unused hand set

i know that google account and others do SOME of this - but i am talking a one click solution - that turns your new phone into an EXACT copy of uyour old one - all the way down to app customisations - files stored off line etc etc etc

when i last changed hansets - google did a lot of the work - but only half my installed apps re-appeared on new phone - and i had to set all of them up with my preferences

so - it should not be hard - one click new phone - from the cloud

a reply to: manta78

Don't take electronics on when you travel out of the country. Buy cheap throwaway / pawn to use. Use a belly band and keep credit card, id and passport in it.

Couldn't you just change the password?

originally posted by: Bramble Iceshimmer
a reply to: manta78

Don't take electronics on when you travel out of the country. Buy cheap throwaway / pawn to use. Use a belly band and keep credit card, id and passport in it.

I am not worried about it personally as a person who has travelled internationally on several occasions. Customs inspectors are not shy. You either comply with their requests to open your luggage, briefcase, laptop, whatever or you are detained or refused entry. I was primarily surprised that it was enacted in New Zealand to the extent of requiring passwords. I guess any country, large or small has their reasons. I know here in the U.S. as one poster mentioned, it has been done for a long time, started in the Bush years. It is generally random with U.S. citizens, but on persons from countries on various lists, it is more or less routine.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Couldn't you just change the password?

True.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Couldn't you just change the password?

Its not that...

You get off plane, get to customs and they ask
'' what is your password/pin - we want to inspect your phone ''

if you refuse - $5000 fine
or you give it to them so they can go through your phone

yes you can change your phone passwords afterwards - but the damage is done. Who knows what they did to your phone, what they saw, what they copied..

its a massive invasion of privacy..

here's an idea... take your mobile phone to the closest ukranian russian national you know
give them your pin/passwords to your phones.. then go sit in a cafe for 20minutes

how comfortable do you feel when you get your phone back?

My phone is world wide usable, but if I ever get to visit there Ill just leave my smart phone at home and buy a burner phone with the numbers I need for them to look at.

Oh, that kind of digital strip search. Not at all what it reads like. The other way would be a lot more profitable.

originally posted by: Agit8dChop

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Couldn't you just change the password?

Its not that...

You get off plane, get to customs and they ask
'' what is your password/pin - we want to inspect your phone ''

if you refuse - $5000 fine
or you give it to them so they can go through your phone

yes you can change your phone passwords afterwards - but the damage is done. Who knows what they did to your phone, what they saw, what they copied..

its a massive invasion of privacy..

here's an idea... take your mobile phone to the closest ukranian russian national you know
give them your pin/passwords to your phones.. then go sit in a cafe for 20minutes

how comfortable do you feel when you get your phone back?

In that case, I guess I'd just put a thousand unique pictures of my bunghole on it and give them the password. But for my money, there's a lot nicer places to go to on vacation anyway. Hell, best vacation you can have is the middle of nowhere out in the woods. Just take a nice zero gravity chair out there and sit down by a stream or something.

a reply to: manta78

This only hurts the average traveler and the excuse of stopping terrorism is just fraudulent.

Every one of these privacy intrusions is for the Deep State to snoop on you.

To get around the problem, buy a cheap phone or laptop when you get there, then load your files from your secured and encrypted cloud storage.

When leaving, erase the hard drive after uploading to your secure cloud. When customs asks, just say "It is broken."

When it is easy as 1,2,3 to avoid the circus you will understand that the circus is not for your benefit.

You are just being trained. Research Pavlovian Response.

It is not aimed at terrorists, it is aimed at ordinary everyday people.

P

This sounds like a lot of wasted effort to me when you can have encrypted data in 'cloud' storage and access it from anywhere anytime on any device IE the 'secret' data you'd prefer to not be open to public access. Not that it has to be anything other than personal data like bank details and ID for personal services etc.

Point is the data they're after need not be 'carried' on your personal devices when entering the country.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

maybe its just me - but i would not lett someone who carries a thousand pics of his own arse hole around with him - in my country

a reply to: ignorant_ape

hahaha brilliant

Well, if you don't like it then don't visit New Zealand.

I learned along time ago to buy a cheap phone for vacations. I had 3 phones stolen probably by hotel staff. So you go buy a prepaid do the same with a camera buy a cheap one that no one wants to steal.

I would never bring anything i would worry about losing or people accessing it.

a reply to: dragonridr

All you really need is to remember a URL plus a password and you wouldn't need to take in any devices at all or even anything written down/printed. The sort of things they're trying to keep out could be accessed at any internet cafe, library or the like.

Sounds like a token gesture for political reasons like being seen to be doing something.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: BrianFlanders

maybe its just me - but i would not lett someone who carries a thousand pics of his own arse hole around with him - in my country

It's probably just you. At any rate, they'd still have to look at them. And that would almost be worth the price of the trip just to think they might be having a nice day sometime and that image just pops into their head and they can't get it out. LOL

If they demand to see your bunghole, what else can you do but show it to them? That's just priceless, really. Some nosy busybody gets an eyeful of something they'd never want to see and their memory turns out to be better than they'd like for it to be and they have a precious memory for life.