A flurry of articles recently about how secure your phone is at border checks, particularly in the US (for obvious reasons).

First a US born NASA scientist was detained returning home and told to unlock his phone - which he eventually did, not being sure what his rights were. Turns out no-one is really sure what rights you have - specifically whether you are obliged to unlock a locked device. One thing we can say is you have far less options to say ‘no’ if you’re non-native to the country you are entering.

It’s staggering to think that courts and laws now allow a border agent to demand you unlock a personal device, without any warrant or proof of suspicion, and that all the data on that device is fair game for them to copy and do with what they will. How did we get here?

Accordingly, here’s a very thorough guide to securing your data at border crossings. Some of it seems over the top - mailing yourself a SIM - but given the slow regression in privacy rights it’s probably all exactly right.