What happens to your laptop at the border?

There have been conflicting opinions regarding user and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rights when it comes to laptops crossing the border, but the DHS has now clarified the rules.

Essentially, the DHS has every right to inspect any electronic device capable of storing data whenever that device is entering or leaving the country. Nor do they need to have any specific suspicion or proximate cause. The department had simply taken the tack that any device entering or leaving the country could be doing so with data injurious in some manner to the United States and is thus liable for search and perhaps for seizure.

The DHS has also clarified the amount of time that they have to inspect your device in a “timely manner” and it is a metric with which you may not agree: the department can take up to 30 days before returning your device, and that is within that timely manner, according to a PCWorld story. That is just a time target; there is not absolute requirement that they return it that quickly. Consider that “any device that can store electronic media” has to mean your laptop, your smartphone, your MP3 player, your USB backup hard drive, or your flash memory thumb drive. Thirty days is a long time to be left without any of those devices, and such a lengthy search could obviate the reason for which you were crossing a U.S. border in the first place.

As a measure of how often these searches occur, the Border Patrol took and searched about 1000 laptops over the most recent 10-month period, with 48 of those being truly in-depth searches. There is no rule that the DHS could not confiscate every electronic device in your possession, leaving you with none of the data you need to do business in your destination country.

It may be that the safest way to travel with data is to make an internet-based backup of everything that you may need in case your devices are taken and searched. At least that would allow you to borrow, rent, or purchase a similar device and download the data you need to operate with. It may cost some money that the DHS is not going to pay back, but at least it would allow you to stay in business during your trip.

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