NZ Travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs fine
Travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs
fine
By Craig McCulloch Craig
McCulloch 10:40 am on 1 October 2018
Travellers who refuse to hand over their phone or laptop
passwords to Customs officials can now be slapped with a $5000 fine.
The Customs and Excise Act 2018 - which comes into effect
today - sets guidelines around how Customs can carry out "digital
strip-searches".
Previously, Customs could stop anyone at the border and
demand to see their electronic devices. However, the law did not specify that
people had to also provide a password.
The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide
access - whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials
would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
"It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're
not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight
mode," Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said.
If people refused to comply, they could be fined up to
$5000 and their device would be seized and forensically searched.
Mr Brown said the law struck the "delicate
balance" between a person's right to privacy and Customs' law enforcement
responsibilities.
"I personally have an e-device and it maintains all
my records - banking data, et cetera, et cetera - so we understand the
importance and significance of it."
Council for Civil Liberties spokesperson Thomas Beagle
said the law was an unjustified invasion of privacy.
"Nowadays we've got everything on our phones; we've
got all our personal life, all our doctors' records, our emails, absolutely
everything on it, and customs can take that and keep it."
The new requirement for reasonable suspicion did not rein
in the law at all, Mr Beagle said.
"They don't have to tell you what the cause of that
suspicion is, there's no way to challenge it."
Customs Minister Kris Faafoi said the power to search
electronic devices was necessary.
"A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a
lot more sophisticated in the ways they're trying to get things across the
border.
"And if we do think they're up to that kind of
business, then getting intelligence from smartphones and computers can be
useful for a prosecution."
But Mr Beagle said "serious criminals" would
simply store incriminating material online.
"You'd be mad to carry stuff over on your phone.
Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over
the drafting of the legislation and said he was "pretty comfortable"
with where the law stood.
"There's a good balance between ensuring that our
borders are protected ... and [that people] are not subject to unreasonable
search of their devices."
"You know when you come into the country that you
can be asked to open your suitcase and that a Customs officer can look at
everything in there."
Border officials searched roughly 540 electronic devices
at New Zealand airports in 2017.
Customs will be required to keep Parliament updated on
the number of devices searched every year. The agency said it did not expect
the number to increase.
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