How to keep your personal info safe when heading to the US
Posted Mar 5, 2012 10:41:04 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Keeping your information confidential when crossing the border isn’t easy. Many of us have no problems when heading stateside. But very easily you can be pulled aside for a full search and your info is at risk.
Greg McMullen is a lawyer with the BC Civil Liberties Association. He says border guards use indicators to decide who get screened.
“The CBSA has a set of, they call them indicators, that they use to target specific people,” explains McMullen. “We’re not quite sure what they are. They refuse to say it in an access to information request that the BCCLA made.”
McMullen says the “indicators” are loosely defined. “From various news reports, we’ve become aware that some of them are very vague. Things like being a single male, traveling alone, returning from certain countries like Germany or Thailand, demonstrating an interest in pornography – I’m not really sure what that is supposed to mean.”
McMullen adds you might want to think about leaving your laptop at home, especially if you are a professional with sensitive information like social workers, lawyers, as well as activists who attract government surveillance.
He has some tips to help keep your confidential information secure. “We’re recommending taking several steps. If you can travel without your electronic devices, that’s probably a good bet. But obviously that’s becoming less and less of an option these days. So we’re recommending at least a strong password for your logins and probably more technical solutions like full disk encryption.
