The Security Mentor

If you cross an international border, Customs may ask to go through the contents of your laptop. Not only could that be fairly personal, it could compromise business secrets or worse. Imagine an attorney traveling with confidential client information. Or, for that matter, a security consultant like me.

You could encrypt the data, but the officer you're talking to could always demand the key. There are court cases in the US that might allow you to argue that handing over a key was self-incrimination and to refuse on that ground. Trying that at the border strikes me as a lousy idea guaranteed to raise suspicion and start a confrontation in which you'd be at a disadvantage. Not to mention being completely irrelevant in every country of the world except the US.

For now the options I see are

• Hope your confidential information doesn't get inspected
• Don't travel with your laptop, or at least remove all confidential material first (and hope you get it all)
• Hide your laptop in a bale of marijuana so it will get across the border undisturbed

Article about the legal issues of border laptop searches in the US.