Its five years with no limitations, so when you are due to be released; Whats your password? Another five years... Its such a poorly worded law you could literally spend your life in prison for forgetting your password. And Its mostly used against peaceful protesters.
Double jeopardy was abolished by Blair in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, Scotland abolished it as well a bit later in Double Jeopardy Act 2011. However i doubt it would apply even if we had it as the wording in Section 49 is so poor it could just be reissued as a new offense each time.
Has it happened? Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has a secrecy requirement built into it, where if you tell anyone that you have been issued a Section 49 you can get an additional 5 years (treated as a separate crime). This, as you can imagine, makes your question difficult to answer.
It does and of course it's different happened. My pet peeve has to be the "it's a poorly worded law" argument about things that have obviously been considered by legal experts. The scares like "the psychoactive substances act will technically make coffee illegal" I've seen on HN are particularly egregious.
I don’t believe this is the case, every now and then we see prosecutors using an obsolete unenforced law or an unexpected edge case of some law to come after people.
A great example is the CFAA. It has been judicially narrowed after court battles, because in its original form it was overbroad and criminalized basic, common things. Prosecutors abused it in order to get political wins until they were finally stopped.
This is unfortunately fairly common. Legislators either push for too much or don’t understand how the law might be applied, and innocent people suffer until someone wins a big expensive set of appeals.
Edit: I realize now you may be talking about the UK in particular, in which case you don’t even get this shoddy level of protection as “Parliament is sovereign” (lol).
I'm talking about the specific law that was being discussed, and the particular other law I used as an example. And the protection mentioned was the one of double jeopardy which had also been explicitly mentioned.
Double jeopardy was partially eliminated in the UK in 2003 for qualifying offenses. I don’t think this has been tested, but during a retrial, a refusal to provide a password would be a separate RIPA offense from any refusal during the first trial. So you could actually be jailed more than once for this. For qualifying offenses all that is required for a retrial is “new and compelling evidence” which is a low hurdle for politically unpopular defendants.
If that did happen you'd have a good case from the Human Rights Act because it becomes indefinite imprisonment. The UK is still following the ECHR as well.
But arguing these theoretical untested-because-they-never-happen edge cases isn't exactly pushing forward a good case for this law having been "badly written." There's seemingly no problem with it in practice.
Dismissing the concerns about poorly worded laws on the basis that they have been considered by legal experts is laughable when it's often legal experts, and in the case of the Psychoactive Substances Act, the government's own advisors that are the ones raising concerns with the broad applicability and unenforceable nature of these controversial laws. The Psychoactive Substances Act has an explicit exemption stating food is not covered by the law for crying out loud, and the exemption for healthcare providers to act within the course of their profession was only added as an amendment, it wasn't even considered in the original drafting of the bill.
> The Psychoactive Substances Act has an explicit exemption stating food is not covered by the law for crying out loud,
Why the "for crying out loud?" That's an example of the law being well written in a way that covers the knee jerk reactions to "it's too broad, it's badly written!"
> the government's own advisors that are the ones raising concerns with the broad applicability
What's your issue with this? They're advisors, it's their job to raise concerns that lead to the inclusion of exemptions like the one you're "crying out loud" about.
> it wasn't even considered in the original drafting of the bill.
That's why bills go through various stages of drafting and debate, and why parliament seeks out and considers the advice from industry. It's "laughable" to judge the quality of a law by the original draft, just as it would be too judge a piece of software by the initial commit.
I'm not even sure how much practical difference there is between 5 and indefinite in practice, 5 years is a long time. I imagine it is pretty life-destroying. Especially for the crime of having something on your phone that you want to keep private.
> If it’s not about nation security or CSAM, it’s two.
I am sure we all get what you mean, but there is a comic interpretation in vaguely-Soviet style here where if someone hasn't done anything wrong they only get 2 years. I'm going to spend some time this weekend making sure my encryption is plausibly deniable where possible.
It's not okay to imprison people for 5 years vs lifetime, but at the same time, facts matter, and we shouldn't get in the habit of allowing fibs to slip through just because they're directionally correct.
The police must obtain appropriate permission from a judge to obtain a s.49 RIPA notice.
Before a judge grants the notice, they must be satisfied that:
The key to the protected information is in the possession of the person given notice.
Disclosure is necessary in the interest of national security, in preventing or detecting crime or in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the UK.
Disclosure is proportionate.
If the protected information cannot be obtained by reasonable means.
> So you're saying it's still at the discretion of a single magistrate?
A judge isn't a magistrate, but also: No, of course not. There are different layers of legal protections in the UK. You would be able to appeal the notice itself, you would be able to argue at the court against the decision, and you could make an appeal to a higher court if your were convicted. Furthermore you could make an official complaint about the investigation afterwards.
An interesting observation of the West is that people have an innate trust in the authorities/institutions. It's largely because the institutions have been well run for so long. But as that fades we're left in this twilight zone where you can point to a law like it prevents something. As is often pointed out, the Soviet constitution was much more free than the US one. Even the Romans knew this distinction
> people have an innate trust in the authorities/institutions. It's largely because the institutions have been well run for so long.
There isn't trust of the institutions in the UK. That's why there's so many layers of checks and balances like various courts of appeal and the two houses in the parliament. It's designed with the idea that a rogue player can't go wild.
It's also not true that British institutions have been well run for a long time. Bloody Sunday would be a very visceral and obvious example. Interesting case as well because obviously it took almost half a century but at least there was official recognition and apology from the prime minister after the courts and parliamentary investigative bodies did their thing.
The standard of proof is reasonable grounds, don't forget your passwords because this is an incredibly low bar to pass.
>in preventing or detecting crime
If the police are requesting a s.49 notice it goes without saying that it will be for preventing or detecting crime, but notices can also be issued to ensure the exercise or performance of public bodies, statutory powers, or statutory duties without such a requirement.
>Disclosure is proportionate.
In regards to what is sought to be achieved by the disclosure. It is not disproportionate to request disclosure for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime regardless of how benign that crime is.
>If the protected information cannot be obtained by reasonable means.
The law has been used against people for failing to give up Facebook passwords. The police routinely ask companies for information without a warrant and they're usually legally denied such requests based on GDPR grounds. 'Reasonably practicable' means nothing if it can be bypassed by police trying their luck without a warrant.
> People have been jailed for hate speech in the uk
The parent poster claimed "for liking a post".
The cases I've seen of "jailed for hate speech" tend to wind up having a harassment or incitement component to them. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy76dxkpjpjo as an example. Hence the request for a cite.
"Parlour, of Seacroft, Leeds, who called for an attack on a hotel housing refugees and asylum seekers on Facebook, became the first person to be jailed for stirring up racial hatred during the disorder."
How convenient that the government doesn't make the numbers public and then have to issue statements like this when journalists do some digging on the matter
I don't get what you're trying to say here? Yes, there are real issues with the government arresting people for speech, and the number is going up, but that's not proof for the specific claim of "you can be imprisoned for liking a post [...]". You can't just tack on spurious claims onto a more well supported claim on the basis that the former is directionally the same as the latter.
Feature request: Make it default behavior on phones that you can have multiple passwords, connected to different profiles. With no way to determine how many profiles a phone have.
I'm sure there's some people here working on mobile operating systems, might be worth considering?
"This profile doesn't have anything on it. Give us the password for the real profile."
Or even worse, you did give them the real password, but because your phone supports the feature and your profile is kind of barren, they don't believe you. Now you are in a very bad lose-lose situation.
You do use your "fake" profile regularly, just for "sanitized" activities. Check in on official sanctioned news sources, do your "legit" banking and financial stuff, etc.
Allow the device user to create a different (duress) password, which when entered, will immediately wipe the phone without any secondary warnings. The user could then provide that password to the people who seized their device, and be in compliance with all laws, while maintaining information security.
As others have pointed out this would likely not save you in this case, but there are some phones which do support this, and I know people in Brazil that use these features in order to be able to comply when getting mugged without giving away access to your bank etc.
This whole PRC law (system) is designed to condemn already targeted individuals, there's no big difference if there's nothing on the phone. Chinese laws are specifically formulated in this pattern: "A, B, C, or at the discretion of the relevant authorities". Since there's no attorney-client privilege in PRC, once you're targeted, the "discretion" can always be found.
Android has a "Private Space" feature. As far as I can tell it's only a single extra profile you can create, but I think you can keep it "hidden" (at least in as much as you can't tell if it's been created without unlocking it).
Crypto wallets work like that. Put in a different password (in addition to the seed) and it's a different account, preferably with some chump change on it for plausibility.
Software isn't going to save you in this scenario. If you're worried about local laws violating your privacy then buy a burner and only put data on there that's necessary for your travels.
I think everyone's glossing over that this extends to anyone who knows the password. Your sysadmin, your business partner, your spouse. Hong Kong just turned your company's entire key management chain into a legal liability.
It would be nice if phones had a feature where you can define more than one pin, but only one is for your actual phone contents - the other ones leave you to a completely harmless but otherwise indistinguishable looking smartphone interface that contains no or only completely bogus data.
Not yet. But with them changing the law to enlist foreigners (who, of course, will care less about Canadians and their rights) in the armed forces, it will change soon.
Samsung has the secure folder which is similar. You lock aware the goods behind a second password and activating that secure folder can be slightly hidden.
Now we just have to wait N years for Android and iOS to get approval from the government to build something similar, that they can market yet somehow screw up enough to not actually help.
Funny how it's a horrible misrepresentation slurring the honor of the United Kingdom to exaggerate the penalty of not unlocking your phone for His Majesty's Law Enforcement, but US border cops being allowed to ask foreigners for the same thing upon pain of not being allowed to enter the country (something that no one seems to care about other nations doing?) is totally the same thing.
> Of all the issues with the US justice system, being compelled to disclose passwords isn't one of them.
This is not totally true. It is also a US issue: CBP has been asking for passwords (or to unlock the device) for phones and computers for more than a year now. Last year, multiple people got turned around because they disagreed with US policies and political views that differ from those of the US's current president.
I don't approve of CBP's approach here, but being denied entry to the country isn't punishment, even if it might feel like it at the time. And that only applies to non-citizens, where entry is fairly reasonably at the government's discretion. Citizens must be admitted regardless.
Rules at the border tend to be pretty restrictive almost everywhere. You can literally get in trouble for having a sandwich in your bag. I'd wager Hong Kong border control was also empowered to request phone passwords and turn away refusers long before this change.
>Do you ever travel outside your own country? Do you think you should retain some basic privacy rights while you do that?
You already don't. Even in countries with protections against arbitrary search and seizure, those go out the window when you're at the border. "No" isn't a valid response if border agents wants to search your luggage.
I travel a fair amount. I understand that my rights at a border are just about none, especially my right to enter the country, aside from the country where I have citizenship. I know that pretty much anywhere I travel, they can search my belongings, search me, and send me home for almost any reason they wish.
As I said, I don't agree with it, but it's normal and has been for longer than anyone here has been alive.
You don't have the protections of U.S. law at the border.
CBP is also asking, not compelling. You don't have to give them your password. If you don't, and you're a foreigner, you may be turned away. If you're a citizen, and I remember correctly, they can seize your device for up to two days if they want.
But they're not going to put you in prison for refusing like the U.K. and Hong Kong will.
If you're a US citizen, I believe they can seize your device indefinitely, and detain you for up to two days. They are required to let you eventually back into the country though.
I think the 48h detention is across the board (without a judge involved, border or not the border). ACLU says device seizure is up to 5 days barring "extenuating circumstances", whatever that means.
You dont have protectiond of US law on the border, inside the border and barely if you are a citizen far away from border. Realistically.
And also actually per law. And yes, being forced to give out passwords and make profiles public as a rputine thing is much worst then being forced to give out password when there is actual warrant.
CBP has absolutely put me in jail (not prison) for refusing to answer questions (including the strip search and being put in chains and handcuffs). As well as threatening to revoke my passport (though they could not). On another occasion they threatened to deport me even though I'm a US citizen. On yet another, they faked a drug dog hit then dragged me to multiple hospitals, racking up bills in my name while claiming I was packing drugs up my ass. I am still being chased by debt collectors for the last one.
I've contacted multiple lawyers and the answer got was they've tried cases like these before and they always lose so they don't take them anymore. Though this was pre-Trump, now it's suddenly in vogue to take up longshot border or immigration cases.
Exactly, everything is in "technically" because, for example, to the best of my knowledge, JFK airport is located in the US.
There are plenty of articles that actually explain that the practice is illegal, but the gov doesn't really care about its legality + there is no organization able to fight it, and even if there were, the Supreme Court would likely be in favor of the US gov.
What is private life if it can be broken for no reason? What is freedom of speech if it doesn't apply to the people who don't agree with you?
Upon entering the US, CBP can ask you to unlock your phone, then connect it to a little box that hacks into the phone and downloads everything. Search for "Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED)" or "Grayshift GrayKey". The border agent doesn't have to know anything about phones/computers, it's just "plug in, press button". With modern phones, they really only work if you unlock your phone before handing it to them, and they'll make you do that. If you don't unlock the phone and let them walk off with it for awhile, they'll refuse you entry into the USA and send you back.
US citizens are, of course, allowed in even if they refuse, but they will confiscate a citizen's phone in exchange for a custody receipt (Form 6051-D) and they are supposed to return it to the US citizen after they break into the phone / crack the encryption. If they can't crack it, they can choose to never return the phone to the US citizen. And it can be a very stressful situation in which citizens may not know what their rights are in the moment (or can't afford to replace their phone or lose access to it because how would you even get an Uber from the airport or coordinate a pickup if you don't have a phone).
You can choose to bring burner phones or make sure your phone is freshly factory reset, but if you're a non-citizen that can also be a reason to be refused entry, and if you are a citizen that can "get you on a list", leading to getting "SSSS" stamped on every boarding pass for every flight you take, in every country in the world, for the next many years. If your boarding pass gets "SSSS" written on it, you will get pulled aside by security and all your bags get individually hand-searched prior to every single flight (even transfers/connections/layovers). This will be a global thing, not limited to USA flights.
Non-citizens are also sometimes asked for a list of your social media accounts and the passwords to their social media accounts. Refusing to provide your passwords can be used as a reason to refuse entry to the USA. If the USA believes you have a social media account that you failed to tell them about, that can also be a reason to refuse entry.
The above probably meant a point that current democracies are increasingly sliding into the same hole as authoritarian governments. Amount on encroachment of governments and big corporations on personal freedoms and democracy in "democratic" countries is quickly becoming intolerable under a guise of safety and "save the children" mantras
Depends, you can get NSL'd to disclose passwords. Good luck running that one up to the supreme court. And biometrics aren't as well-protected. Though, yes, in the UK it's a much more routine affair.
Source? Given 5th amendment protections I'm guessing this only covers snitching on others, but that's standard subpoena law. If you're issued a subpoena to produce documents on someone else (eg. a customer of yours), you can't refuse. It's called protection against "self-incrimination" for a reason.
No one likes when I say this but it's really past time to stop doing anything interesting on your phone. Delete all your apps, set it as minimally as possible. Leave it home when you go for walks, and power it off when you go driving or to the store, or whatever.
how? whatsapp, wechat, telegram, even signal, all require a phone to be used.
if i didn't need any of those apps then sure, but unfortunately there is no way around these apps if i want to keep in touch with certain people that are important to me.
If you need to use these, set the history retention to like no time. That would help a lot. They could still get the contents from the person you are communicating with, but it would require more work on their part. Humans are generally fairly lazy. If you can get the people you communicate iwth to also turn off message retention, that would help. Then they could tell you talked with Tootie, but not what you talked about, at least from the device(s) themselves.
If you “must” use those then keep a phone off in a drawer and turn it on once a day to keep in touch.
If those people won’t allow you to be offline from time to time and aren’t willing to switch communication methods as an alternative, maybe it’s not a symmetrical relationship.
I'm starting to believe this is [a] way forward. Or maybe an approach which is on a spectrum between <everything I have is on a phone behind a fingerprint and a four digit pin> and <I don't own a smartphone>.
Unfortunately, it's pretty common to only have a smartphone as your sole compute device, and increasingly onerous not to own one at all.
>Or maybe an approach which is on a spectrum between
>increasingly onerous not to own one at all.
Yes, and I think this unfortunately demands a grey area. I'm starting to treat my smartphone more like a work device, and there are a few things I do on it:
- My work's authenticator app is there.
- Unfortunately Signal is tied to smartphone usage.
- Practically speaking, people will expect to be able to send you text messages.
- It's still useful for taking pictures.
- My banking app is on there.
Outside of rare occasions, that's really all I use my phone for. I don't carry it around the house. If I go somewhere with my wife, I don't even bring my phone most of the time. I'm "required" to have it, but in principle it's not even mine. It shouldn't be trusted or enjoyed.
That is exactly why a Duress Pin, like the one in GrapheneOS, should be standard everywhere. Ideally, it should also include an option to visibly destroy the device by overheating it, to ensure that no one can accuse you of not having actually deleted the data and keep asking for a password.
I wonder what would happen if HK tried to force somebody to unlock their business phone. It's typically a violation of corporate policy to allow a third party to access the encrypted, confidential information on corporate mobile devices.
The poor device user would be faced with a choice of losing their job and being held criminally liable for breaching their company's systems, or going to jail in Hong Kong.
Police in HK will not ask you to unlock your business phone, or personal phone.
They are pro-business and want to remain an attractive international business hub so they are nice to foreign visitors. Likewise China (mainland) is nice to Western visitors and will not create trouble to you. If you visit the mainland these days (visa free if coming from Europe!) they also make efforts so that you are not impacted by the Great Firewall.
The way it works on the mainland and HK is that you must have shown by your actions that you are a "troublemaker" and got onto their radar. Then you are in trouble.
China is keen to attract Western visitors for tourism, business, and to stay if you're top talent (visa-free travel, new work visa for STEM talent) so they will try ot project a positive image.
That just boils down to “you have no real rights, but if you keep your head down and dont get unlucky, you probably won’t be targeted”.
I’m a white US citizen who worked on oil rigs in GCC countries (Arabian Gulf). I was put on a global watch list for 6 years due to my work in the middle east.
I still don’t know why - maybe due to colleagues in my contacts? There was a “mega church” near me that some of my coworkers attended which was the “minority religion” of Saudi Arabia, so perhaps I was a few degrees of Kevin Bacon from some people that Saudi had flagged. Or maybe just travel patterns - I often didn’t know exactly when my rotation would end and I frequently bought last minute flights to head back home / to vacation destinations.
I certainly was not put on a list for any of my speech (public or private), which had been extremely measured at the time (and still is), due to understanding that my host countries had different laws and constitutions from our own. I very carefully observed all the laws and social expectations. But nonetheless, I found myself on a list anyways and for that 6-7 year duration, all of my boarding passes globally got “SSSS” written on it and all my luggage + carryons got unpacked by hand and hand-searched prior to every flight, including connecting flights.
Every flight I flew those searches were a very personal 20-30 minute long reminder to carefully manicure who I’m in contact with, what I say, how/where/when I travel, and any other records/data that I might generate. I often had to give a heads up to anyone I was traveling with (colleagues or personal friends) that we had to leave a little extra early to accommodate those searches.
> That just boils down to “you have no real rights, but if you keep your head down and dont get unlucky, you probably won’t be targeted”.
It's not about luck in this case. They want to be 'nice' so you need to actively do something, that's not the same as as "keeping your head down". Also note that as a Western visitor to China, if they have flagged you they are more likely to deny your visa or to deny you entry than to look for further trouble. In general the least waves the better.
I'd imagine that's even more suspicious if you can't tell them who does know the password, or just gets lumped in with "refused to unlock your device".
Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
Speaking of being disingenuous, when you say "Police can search phones to counteract human traffickers", did you think critically about that at all before writing it? Given one of the stated justifications is "preventing terrorism", and the UK has been illegally arresting Palestine Action supporters as terrorists for over a year, this seems a little naive at least.
> Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
That would be nonsensical. If you have anti-Xi propaganda on your phone (which could be the reasons you mention), you have nothing to fear in Europe or in the US and a lot to fear in China.
The US is actually worse than both China and Europe because it's 18th century amendments protect human traffickers. Although they do what they can to not have to adhere to those, especially in border control.
> What about Palestine Action...
I'll limit myself to the LARP about "oppressive Europe invigilating your phone".
Nobody cares about your phone in China, if you are tourist, you are less likely have your phone searched than when visiting US. Nobody is going to ask you for your social media profiles when visiting China, unlike when visiting US. So who is here the free country?
I've spent this summer 3 weeks in China, used 2 VPNs, both of them worked fine (1 cost less than dollar, the other 4-5 dollars), so did my wife, mother and her husband, guess how many times someone cared about checking our phone.
The biggest issue was when we travelled into Beijing province where there are mo strict border checks and police found out we didn't register our accommodation (at wife's family), the scary horrible policemen then locked us for weeks and deport us from country... No, seriously, that would more likely happen in US than in China, in China they just told us to register after the weekend at local police station and let us continue into province to check Great wall, policemen in police station could not care less and be more laid back about it.
Maybe visit some other countries to have actual experiences instead spreading everywhere your feelings about other countries based on some propaganda.
It's not the tourists, it's the local dissidents that have something to fear. Or maybe try going there as a tourist, and putting up anti-party posters.
Indeed anti-Xi posts are unsafe in China, and safe in UK. Equally, anti-UK posts are safe in China and not so in the UK... (eg https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118565/documents/...). The naïveté in the claim that these are significantly different reminded me of an old joke from the USSR:
American: In America, we have freedom of speech.
USSRian: What's that?
American: I can stand in front of the White House and yell "Reagan is a moron!" and nothing will happen to me.
USSRian: Well, we have that in USSR too.
American: Really?
USSRian: Yes, of course! I go stand in the center of the Red Square and yell "Reagan is a moron" and nothing will happen to me.
You're saying anti-uk posts, you're linking some heavily editorialized article from a highly ideological media outlet about an arrest "allegedly over criticising anti-trans activists". So not anti-UK posts.
The arrest doesn't seem to have lead to any conviction. So not years of jail and reeducation camps like you get in China for dissent.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You put this things together and you claim they're the same. They're not even close. This makes you seem funny, unserious.
You're trying to convince a flat-earther with logic or physics. Western democracies are evil. Worse than China and worse than North Korea. The answer is Marxism.
EDIT: This reminds me of a Russian person I used to work with. He truly believed that elections in all western democracies were fake and rigged. That is you go and vote but the vote is predetermined. This was a long time ago but I think it was some story told in Russia about the west (basically how the west is not really free) that stuck as an unshakeable belief when he left Russia and moved to the west. This was about 40 years ago give or take. People can hold weird beliefs and conspiracy theories (like people that believe the earth is flat) and those beliefs can not be assailed with logic or facts.
The reality is(?) that western democracies with all their flaws are better than authoritarian regimes but a person can not grasp the entirety of reality. One can always find examples where people are treated unjustly or unfairly in western democracies and ofcourse one can find examples of people being "ok" in authoritarian regimes. The key is to apply the scientific method to the question vs. relying on anecdotes but the human mind is not really wired for that.
Increasingly, people in the US get convinced that Europe is pretty much like China (they usually focus on the policing of online spaces in the UK as proof of that).
There was apparently a recent push in their media to introduce and reinforce this narrative. Can’t see what good would that do, except the current leadership wanting to worsen relations with everyone.
I did that. There are no arrests for criticizing on the first page of Google.
Judging by your previous reactions, you're going to say that your Google is different, and link some news story about an arrest that isn't for criticizing and instead for supporting terrorism.
Hate to break to you that not every arrest is the same. Some include beating, and lead to jail time. Some include questioning and they lead to the arrested walking free within the day.
So you're hyperfocusing on the UK's online posting, which has nothing to do with the original subject of phone passwords, and doesn't even happen in other European countries, because UK has more proactive monitoring of online spaces by police.
And this is your proof that Europe is a tyrranical dictatorship.
How about the US? What I'm going to write smells of "whataboutism", but it's tragic how more and more of the world is becoming police states. Going to the USA, they want your social media accounts. Regardless of that, the border thugs can probably demand you unlock your devices or they'll detain you for weeks on end, without any repercussions, because that sort of lawlessness is government policy now.
> In the US, not disclosing a password is explicitly protected (5th amndmnt),
That's great but of exactly zero help if you're trying to travel to the US and CBP (or ICE) are staring you down. Even if they don't gulag you, they can always just reject entry for any non-citizen (and these days even some citizens it seems.)
Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. In fact, part of a definition of a country is ability to practice control over its territory and who is and is not there. This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please. No non-citizen of a country has any right to be present in it, except as permitted by its government, so any country if free to make it as hard as they wish to enter for non-citizens. This may not be a good idea, but control over a territory is literally part of the definition.
> Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. […] This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please.
Or, a country could set rules that specify what they will and won't do as part of their entry controls. Just because it's a kind of an "absolute" power doesn't mean you can't still self-impose rules. The benefit being attracting more leisure and business travellers.
They have? What was the relevant case? It was my understanding that some lower courts have ruled one way, others the opposite. There are also many nuances in particular cases (e.g., the police wanting a broad search of a device for something that may or may not be there versus them knowing for a fact a device has certain information they want).
Federal agents couldn't possibly have been aware that executing people on the streets is a violation of those people's rights, so they are covered by QI.
At least 225 judges have ruled in more than 700 cases that the administration's mandatory immigration detention policy likely violates the right to due process[1] The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause generally requires those having federal funds cut off to receive notice and an opportunity for a hearing, which was not provided in many of DOGE's spending freezes[2]
Wow, what a free society! In the UK if you refuse to unlock your device you can be imprisoned indefinitely! In HK it's just one year!
Why are you misrepresenting about UK law?
Yes, it can be a criminal offence. But the maximum tariff for this under RIPA 2000 is five years. If it’s not about nation security or CSAM, it’s two.
(Incidentally, the USA is a real outlier in this topic)
Its five years with no limitations, so when you are due to be released; Whats your password? Another five years... Its such a poorly worded law you could literally spend your life in prison for forgetting your password. And Its mostly used against peaceful protesters.
>Its five years with no limitations, so when you are due to be released
Doesn't double jeopardy prevent this? Has this actually happened?
Double jeopardy was abolished by Blair in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, Scotland abolished it as well a bit later in Double Jeopardy Act 2011. However i doubt it would apply even if we had it as the wording in Section 49 is so poor it could just be reissued as a new offense each time.
Has it happened? Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has a secrecy requirement built into it, where if you tell anyone that you have been issued a Section 49 you can get an additional 5 years (treated as a separate crime). This, as you can imagine, makes your question difficult to answer.
It does and of course it's different happened. My pet peeve has to be the "it's a poorly worded law" argument about things that have obviously been considered by legal experts. The scares like "the psychoactive substances act will technically make coffee illegal" I've seen on HN are particularly egregious.
Laws that are so poorly worded that they could be easily misused are bad laws.
Legislators should force future would-be tyrants to flagrantly violate the law, as this is more likely to generate popular resistance.
> Laws that are so poorly worded that they could be easily misused are bad laws.
The point is that these laws aren't badly written. There's already protections in place for what's described above.
I don’t believe this is the case, every now and then we see prosecutors using an obsolete unenforced law or an unexpected edge case of some law to come after people.
A great example is the CFAA. It has been judicially narrowed after court battles, because in its original form it was overbroad and criminalized basic, common things. Prosecutors abused it in order to get political wins until they were finally stopped.
This is unfortunately fairly common. Legislators either push for too much or don’t understand how the law might be applied, and innocent people suffer until someone wins a big expensive set of appeals.
Edit: I realize now you may be talking about the UK in particular, in which case you don’t even get this shoddy level of protection as “Parliament is sovereign” (lol).
I'm talking about the specific law that was being discussed, and the particular other law I used as an example. And the protection mentioned was the one of double jeopardy which had also been explicitly mentioned.
Double jeopardy was partially eliminated in the UK in 2003 for qualifying offenses. I don’t think this has been tested, but during a retrial, a refusal to provide a password would be a separate RIPA offense from any refusal during the first trial. So you could actually be jailed more than once for this. For qualifying offenses all that is required for a retrial is “new and compelling evidence” which is a low hurdle for politically unpopular defendants.
If that did happen you'd have a good case from the Human Rights Act because it becomes indefinite imprisonment. The UK is still following the ECHR as well.
But arguing these theoretical untested-because-they-never-happen edge cases isn't exactly pushing forward a good case for this law having been "badly written." There's seemingly no problem with it in practice.
Dismissing the concerns about poorly worded laws on the basis that they have been considered by legal experts is laughable when it's often legal experts, and in the case of the Psychoactive Substances Act, the government's own advisors that are the ones raising concerns with the broad applicability and unenforceable nature of these controversial laws. The Psychoactive Substances Act has an explicit exemption stating food is not covered by the law for crying out loud, and the exemption for healthcare providers to act within the course of their profession was only added as an amendment, it wasn't even considered in the original drafting of the bill.
> The Psychoactive Substances Act has an explicit exemption stating food is not covered by the law for crying out loud,
Why the "for crying out loud?" That's an example of the law being well written in a way that covers the knee jerk reactions to "it's too broad, it's badly written!"
> the government's own advisors that are the ones raising concerns with the broad applicability
What's your issue with this? They're advisors, it's their job to raise concerns that lead to the inclusion of exemptions like the one you're "crying out loud" about.
> it wasn't even considered in the original drafting of the bill.
That's why bills go through various stages of drafting and debate, and why parliament seeks out and considers the advice from industry. It's "laughable" to judge the quality of a law by the original draft, just as it would be too judge a piece of software by the initial commit.
Are we damning the UK with faint praise now?
I'm not even sure how much practical difference there is between 5 and indefinite in practice, 5 years is a long time. I imagine it is pretty life-destroying. Especially for the crime of having something on your phone that you want to keep private.
> If it’s not about nation security or CSAM, it’s two.
I am sure we all get what you mean, but there is a comic interpretation in vaguely-Soviet style here where if someone hasn't done anything wrong they only get 2 years. I'm going to spend some time this weekend making sure my encryption is plausibly deniable where possible.
You're unsure of the difference between 5 and infinity?
5 years in prison can destroy your life easily, so yeah, what's the difference?
Easily something like 45 years of difference. It is really not necessary to lie, no matter how much you hate UK or Europe.
It wasn't a lie. the 5 years can be extended. See the comment by cortic elsewhere in the thread.
Oh just 5 years, that's OK then.
It's not okay to imprison people for 5 years vs lifetime, but at the same time, facts matter, and we shouldn't get in the habit of allowing fibs to slip through just because they're directionally correct.
The police must obtain appropriate permission from a judge to obtain a s.49 RIPA notice.
Before a judge grants the notice, they must be satisfied that:
The key to the protected information is in the possession of the person given notice. Disclosure is necessary in the interest of national security, in preventing or detecting crime or in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the UK. Disclosure is proportionate. If the protected information cannot be obtained by reasonable means.
So you're saying it's still at the discretion of a single magistrate?
I'm sure China could find some judges to rule in the name of national security if it would give everyone warm fuzzies.
Judicial checks and balances only function when they're independent of the executive and parliament
> So you're saying it's still at the discretion of a single magistrate?
A judge isn't a magistrate, but also: No, of course not. There are different layers of legal protections in the UK. You would be able to appeal the notice itself, you would be able to argue at the court against the decision, and you could make an appeal to a higher court if your were convicted. Furthermore you could make an official complaint about the investigation afterwards.
Not addressing your main point, magistrates and judges are not the same thing. It would be much worse if it were at the discretion of a magistrate.
An interesting observation of the West is that people have an innate trust in the authorities/institutions. It's largely because the institutions have been well run for so long. But as that fades we're left in this twilight zone where you can point to a law like it prevents something. As is often pointed out, the Soviet constitution was much more free than the US one. Even the Romans knew this distinction
> people have an innate trust in the authorities/institutions. It's largely because the institutions have been well run for so long.
There isn't trust of the institutions in the UK. That's why there's so many layers of checks and balances like various courts of appeal and the two houses in the parliament. It's designed with the idea that a rogue player can't go wild.
It's also not true that British institutions have been well run for a long time. Bloody Sunday would be a very visceral and obvious example. Interesting case as well because obviously it took almost half a century but at least there was official recognition and apology from the prime minister after the courts and parliamentary investigative bodies did their thing.
The standard of proof is reasonable grounds, don't forget your passwords because this is an incredibly low bar to pass.
>in preventing or detecting crime
If the police are requesting a s.49 notice it goes without saying that it will be for preventing or detecting crime, but notices can also be issued to ensure the exercise or performance of public bodies, statutory powers, or statutory duties without such a requirement.
>Disclosure is proportionate.
In regards to what is sought to be achieved by the disclosure. It is not disproportionate to request disclosure for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime regardless of how benign that crime is.
>If the protected information cannot be obtained by reasonable means.
The law has been used against people for failing to give up Facebook passwords. The police routinely ask companies for information without a warrant and they're usually legally denied such requests based on GDPR grounds. 'Reasonably practicable' means nothing if it can be bypassed by police trying their luck without a warrant.
In UK you can be imprisoned for liking a post on Facebook that is considered "hate speech".
Jail? Just for saying you're English?
[citation needed]
No citation needed, it should be common knowledge like stopping at a stop sign. People have been jailed for hate speech in the uk
> People have been jailed for hate speech in the uk
The parent poster claimed "for liking a post".
The cases I've seen of "jailed for hate speech" tend to wind up having a harassment or incitement component to them. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy76dxkpjpjo as an example. Hence the request for a cite.
"Parlour, of Seacroft, Leeds, who called for an attack on a hotel housing refugees and asylum seekers on Facebook, became the first person to be jailed for stirring up racial hatred during the disorder."
Wikipedia's "selected cases" for plain old hatefulness, similarly, seems to be all fines, no jail terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United...
It's a common knowledge that people who post such comments are on putin's payrol.
Where do I collect me check? I have been doing this for free for a long time!
>No citation needed, it should be common knowledge like stopping at a stop sign.
Sounds like you can't (or are unwilling) to produce evidence, and you're trying to handwave that issue away with "it's common knowledge'.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...
How convenient that the government doesn't make the numbers public and then have to issue statements like this when journalists do some digging on the matter
I don't get what you're trying to say here? Yes, there are real issues with the government arresting people for speech, and the number is going up, but that's not proof for the specific claim of "you can be imprisoned for liking a post [...]". You can't just tack on spurious claims onto a more well supported claim on the basis that the former is directionally the same as the latter.
Feature request: Make it default behavior on phones that you can have multiple passwords, connected to different profiles. With no way to determine how many profiles a phone have.
I'm sure there's some people here working on mobile operating systems, might be worth considering?
"This profile doesn't have anything on it. Give us the password for the real profile."
Or even worse, you did give them the real password, but because your phone supports the feature and your profile is kind of barren, they don't believe you. Now you are in a very bad lose-lose situation.
With LLMs, it should be easier than ever to fake generate text messages, notes, emails, etc.
You do use your "fake" profile regularly, just for "sanitized" activities. Check in on official sanctioned news sources, do your "legit" banking and financial stuff, etc.
I suppose that you could have the phone listening in real time and generating profiles that are hidden and embarrassing but not illegal.
So when they ask for the real profile it shows in the next unlock a profile that makes it very clear you have a deeply embarrassing ASMR addiction.
It could cross reference your local laws to ensure to not spill the beans on something locally illegal.
xkcd 538
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png
So put stuff on it, duh
"This isn't what we expected to find. Give us the real password."
So your approach instead is...?
Well, if you absolutely must go, don’t bring a phone at all. But do realize that that can be seen as suspicious too.
In general though, my point is that you can’t solve this problem with clever tech tricks. It’ll just make everything more painful for you.
Veracrypt e.g. has had this for a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
Another feature request:
Allow the device user to create a different (duress) password, which when entered, will immediately wipe the phone without any secondary warnings. The user could then provide that password to the people who seized their device, and be in compliance with all laws, while maintaining information security.
As others have pointed out this would likely not save you in this case, but there are some phones which do support this, and I know people in Brazil that use these features in order to be able to comply when getting mugged without giving away access to your bank etc.
This whole PRC law (system) is designed to condemn already targeted individuals, there's no big difference if there's nothing on the phone. Chinese laws are specifically formulated in this pattern: "A, B, C, or at the discretion of the relevant authorities". Since there's no attorney-client privilege in PRC, once you're targeted, the "discretion" can always be found.
Android has a "Private Space" feature. As far as I can tell it's only a single extra profile you can create, but I think you can keep it "hidden" (at least in as much as you can't tell if it's been created without unlocking it).
https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/private-sp...
Crypto wallets work like that. Put in a different password (in addition to the seed) and it's a different account, preferably with some chump change on it for plausibility.
Software isn't going to save you in this scenario. If you're worried about local laws violating your privacy then buy a burner and only put data on there that's necessary for your travels.
> Provide fake credentials? Three years behind bars.
They would be real credentials, just to a separate profile. Are they going to make multiple profiles illegal?
Yes.
Genius.
I think everyone's glossing over that this extends to anyone who knows the password. Your sysadmin, your business partner, your spouse. Hong Kong just turned your company's entire key management chain into a legal liability.
Ah, finally catching up to ... The UK, Australia, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and probably a lot more.
It would be nice if phones had a feature where you can define more than one pin, but only one is for your actual phone contents - the other ones leave you to a completely harmless but otherwise indistinguishable looking smartphone interface that contains no or only completely bogus data.
It would be nice if I didn't get beaten with a hose in a vain attempt to prove that I unlocked the "real" one.
If your country has this problem, you’re way past worrying about phones, and you need to be acquiring arms and training.
It's illegal to have any decently good arms in Canada.
If you live in a country where the police will beat you to extract a confession, it may be time to start violating the law.
(To my knowledge this is not the case in Canada.)
> To my knowledge this is not the case in Canada.
Not yet. But with them changing the law to enlist foreigners (who, of course, will care less about Canadians and their rights) in the armed forces, it will change soon.
I maintain that the series "24" back in the day did us all a great disservice by promoting the value of torture to "save the world".
I'm hard pressed to find any reason for any citizen to be compelled to share their secrets with the police because the police had "suspicions".
The 4th and 5th are paramount for a free society.
> with a hose
You mean wrench? https://xkcd.com/538/
If you've read Applied Cryptography, you'd know it is definitely a hose.
Almost every chinese android variant has that. On Oppo it’s called clone system
Samsung has the secure folder which is similar. You lock aware the goods behind a second password and activating that secure folder can be slightly hidden.
One should be able to define a PIN number that wipes your phone.
My Oppo Find N6 allows multiple user accounts
"Featured" on HN just a week ago, seems GrapheneOS' "Duress pin" would be very helpful in these cases: https://grapheneos.org/features#duress (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47445931).
Now we just have to wait N years for Android and iOS to get approval from the government to build something similar, that they can market yet somehow screw up enough to not actually help.
The horrible bastion of despotism that is China-run Hong Kong has now caught up to the rule of law utopias of enlightened thought in the US and UK.
>in the US and UK
???
Of all the issues with the US justice system, being compelled to disclose passwords isn't one of them. It is an issue for UK, though.
Funny how it's a horrible misrepresentation slurring the honor of the United Kingdom to exaggerate the penalty of not unlocking your phone for His Majesty's Law Enforcement, but US border cops being allowed to ask foreigners for the same thing upon pain of not being allowed to enter the country (something that no one seems to care about other nations doing?) is totally the same thing.
> Of all the issues with the US justice system, being compelled to disclose passwords isn't one of them.
This is not totally true. It is also a US issue: CBP has been asking for passwords (or to unlock the device) for phones and computers for more than a year now. Last year, multiple people got turned around because they disagreed with US policies and political views that differ from those of the US's current president.
I don't approve of CBP's approach here, but being denied entry to the country isn't punishment, even if it might feel like it at the time. And that only applies to non-citizens, where entry is fairly reasonably at the government's discretion. Citizens must be admitted regardless.
Rules at the border tend to be pretty restrictive almost everywhere. You can literally get in trouble for having a sandwich in your bag. I'd wager Hong Kong border control was also empowered to request phone passwords and turn away refusers long before this change.
Do you ever travel outside your own country? Do you think you should retain some basic privacy rights while you do that?
It’s not even good for business. Business laptops and phones have trade secrets to conduct regular company activities.
Normalizing the surveillance dystopia we live in ON HN is beyond my understanding.
>Do you ever travel outside your own country? Do you think you should retain some basic privacy rights while you do that?
You already don't. Even in countries with protections against arbitrary search and seizure, those go out the window when you're at the border. "No" isn't a valid response if border agents wants to search your luggage.
I travel a fair amount. I understand that my rights at a border are just about none, especially my right to enter the country, aside from the country where I have citizenship. I know that pretty much anywhere I travel, they can search my belongings, search me, and send me home for almost any reason they wish.
As I said, I don't agree with it, but it's normal and has been for longer than anyone here has been alive.
You don't have the protections of U.S. law at the border.
CBP is also asking, not compelling. You don't have to give them your password. If you don't, and you're a foreigner, you may be turned away. If you're a citizen, and I remember correctly, they can seize your device for up to two days if they want.
But they're not going to put you in prison for refusing like the U.K. and Hong Kong will.
If you're a US citizen, I believe they can seize your device indefinitely, and detain you for up to two days. They are required to let you eventually back into the country though.
(If you're not a citizen, all bets are off)
Here's what the ACLU says:
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/can-border-agen...
I think the 48h detention is across the board (without a judge involved, border or not the border). ACLU says device seizure is up to 5 days barring "extenuating circumstances", whatever that means.
The same article says they can fairly arbitrarily do repeated 7-day extensions. And:
> We’ve received reports of phones being held for weeks or even months.
You dont have protectiond of US law on the border, inside the border and barely if you are a citizen far away from border. Realistically.
And also actually per law. And yes, being forced to give out passwords and make profiles public as a rputine thing is much worst then being forced to give out password when there is actual warrant.
CBP has absolutely put me in jail (not prison) for refusing to answer questions (including the strip search and being put in chains and handcuffs). As well as threatening to revoke my passport (though they could not). On another occasion they threatened to deport me even though I'm a US citizen. On yet another, they faked a drug dog hit then dragged me to multiple hospitals, racking up bills in my name while claiming I was packing drugs up my ass. I am still being chased by debt collectors for the last one.
I've contacted multiple lawyers and the answer got was they've tried cases like these before and they always lose so they don't take them anymore. Though this was pre-Trump, now it's suddenly in vogue to take up longshot border or immigration cases.
That sucks. You were wronged, and I hope you get justice.
In the U.K. or Hong Kong, "justice" would entail prison.
> Last year, multiple people got turned around because they disagreed with US policies and political views
so they were not in US technically?
Exactly, everything is in "technically" because, for example, to the best of my knowledge, JFK airport is located in the US.
There are plenty of articles that actually explain that the practice is illegal, but the gov doesn't really care about its legality + there is no organization able to fight it, and even if there were, the Supreme Court would likely be in favor of the US gov.
What is private life if it can be broken for no reason? What is freedom of speech if it doesn't apply to the people who don't agree with you?
> Of all the issues with the US justice system, being compelled to disclose passwords isn't one of them
Under the present administration I wouldn't be surprised if for example ICE tried the $5 wrench method.
Upon entering the US, CBP can ask you to unlock your phone, then connect it to a little box that hacks into the phone and downloads everything. Search for "Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED)" or "Grayshift GrayKey". The border agent doesn't have to know anything about phones/computers, it's just "plug in, press button". With modern phones, they really only work if you unlock your phone before handing it to them, and they'll make you do that. If you don't unlock the phone and let them walk off with it for awhile, they'll refuse you entry into the USA and send you back.
US citizens are, of course, allowed in even if they refuse, but they will confiscate a citizen's phone in exchange for a custody receipt (Form 6051-D) and they are supposed to return it to the US citizen after they break into the phone / crack the encryption. If they can't crack it, they can choose to never return the phone to the US citizen. And it can be a very stressful situation in which citizens may not know what their rights are in the moment (or can't afford to replace their phone or lose access to it because how would you even get an Uber from the airport or coordinate a pickup if you don't have a phone).
You can choose to bring burner phones or make sure your phone is freshly factory reset, but if you're a non-citizen that can also be a reason to be refused entry, and if you are a citizen that can "get you on a list", leading to getting "SSSS" stamped on every boarding pass for every flight you take, in every country in the world, for the next many years. If your boarding pass gets "SSSS" written on it, you will get pulled aside by security and all your bags get individually hand-searched prior to every single flight (even transfers/connections/layovers). This will be a global thing, not limited to USA flights.
Non-citizens are also sometimes asked for a list of your social media accounts and the passwords to their social media accounts. Refusing to provide your passwords can be used as a reason to refuse entry to the USA. If the USA believes you have a social media account that you failed to tell them about, that can also be a reason to refuse entry.
No but .. but the constitution.. but...
The above probably meant a point that current democracies are increasingly sliding into the same hole as authoritarian governments. Amount on encroachment of governments and big corporations on personal freedoms and democracy in "democratic" countries is quickly becoming intolerable under a guise of safety and "save the children" mantras
Depends, you can get NSL'd to disclose passwords. Good luck running that one up to the supreme court. And biometrics aren't as well-protected. Though, yes, in the UK it's a much more routine affair.
>Depends, you can get NSL'd to disclose passwords
Source? Given 5th amendment protections I'm guessing this only covers snitching on others, but that's standard subpoena law. If you're issued a subpoena to produce documents on someone else (eg. a customer of yours), you can't refuse. It's called protection against "self-incrimination" for a reason.
You have never crossed the border into the Great US of A then
It's possible to cross the border many times and not have this happen.
okay, but it is also possible to have it happen.
For sure, but we need to stop hyperbolizing constantly, it's really not helpful.
I take it you haven't crossed the border recently?
in china was never a problem for police to detain you for any reason (or no reason) but HK has a different legal system
No one likes when I say this but it's really past time to stop doing anything interesting on your phone. Delete all your apps, set it as minimally as possible. Leave it home when you go for walks, and power it off when you go driving or to the store, or whatever.
For many people, their phone is their primary, if not only, computing and communications device.
Right, which is why they need to start changing their behavior.
how? whatsapp, wechat, telegram, even signal, all require a phone to be used.
if i didn't need any of those apps then sure, but unfortunately there is no way around these apps if i want to keep in touch with certain people that are important to me.
If you need to use these, set the history retention to like no time. That would help a lot. They could still get the contents from the person you are communicating with, but it would require more work on their part. Humans are generally fairly lazy. If you can get the people you communicate iwth to also turn off message retention, that would help. Then they could tell you talked with Tootie, but not what you talked about, at least from the device(s) themselves.
If you “must” use those then keep a phone off in a drawer and turn it on once a day to keep in touch.
If those people won’t allow you to be offline from time to time and aren’t willing to switch communication methods as an alternative, maybe it’s not a symmetrical relationship.
Or use something like Beeper (works on Linux): https://www.beeper.com/
I'm starting to believe this is [a] way forward. Or maybe an approach which is on a spectrum between <everything I have is on a phone behind a fingerprint and a four digit pin> and <I don't own a smartphone>.
Unfortunately, it's pretty common to only have a smartphone as your sole compute device, and increasingly onerous not to own one at all.
>Or maybe an approach which is on a spectrum between >increasingly onerous not to own one at all.
Yes, and I think this unfortunately demands a grey area. I'm starting to treat my smartphone more like a work device, and there are a few things I do on it:
- My work's authenticator app is there.
- Unfortunately Signal is tied to smartphone usage.
- Practically speaking, people will expect to be able to send you text messages.
- It's still useful for taking pictures.
- My banking app is on there.
Outside of rare occasions, that's really all I use my phone for. I don't carry it around the house. If I go somewhere with my wife, I don't even bring my phone most of the time. I'm "required" to have it, but in principle it's not even mine. It shouldn't be trusted or enjoyed.
That is exactly why a Duress Pin, like the one in GrapheneOS, should be standard everywhere. Ideally, it should also include an option to visibly destroy the device by overheating it, to ensure that no one can accuse you of not having actually deleted the data and keep asking for a password.
I wonder what would happen if HK tried to force somebody to unlock their business phone. It's typically a violation of corporate policy to allow a third party to access the encrypted, confidential information on corporate mobile devices.
The poor device user would be faced with a choice of losing their job and being held criminally liable for breaching their company's systems, or going to jail in Hong Kong.
Police in HK will not ask you to unlock your business phone, or personal phone.
They are pro-business and want to remain an attractive international business hub so they are nice to foreign visitors. Likewise China (mainland) is nice to Western visitors and will not create trouble to you. If you visit the mainland these days (visa free if coming from Europe!) they also make efforts so that you are not impacted by the Great Firewall.
The way it works on the mainland and HK is that you must have shown by your actions that you are a "troublemaker" and got onto their radar. Then you are in trouble.
China is keen to attract Western visitors for tourism, business, and to stay if you're top talent (visa-free travel, new work visa for STEM talent) so they will try ot project a positive image.
That just boils down to “you have no real rights, but if you keep your head down and dont get unlucky, you probably won’t be targeted”.
I’m a white US citizen who worked on oil rigs in GCC countries (Arabian Gulf). I was put on a global watch list for 6 years due to my work in the middle east.
I still don’t know why - maybe due to colleagues in my contacts? There was a “mega church” near me that some of my coworkers attended which was the “minority religion” of Saudi Arabia, so perhaps I was a few degrees of Kevin Bacon from some people that Saudi had flagged. Or maybe just travel patterns - I often didn’t know exactly when my rotation would end and I frequently bought last minute flights to head back home / to vacation destinations.
I certainly was not put on a list for any of my speech (public or private), which had been extremely measured at the time (and still is), due to understanding that my host countries had different laws and constitutions from our own. I very carefully observed all the laws and social expectations. But nonetheless, I found myself on a list anyways and for that 6-7 year duration, all of my boarding passes globally got “SSSS” written on it and all my luggage + carryons got unpacked by hand and hand-searched prior to every flight, including connecting flights.
Every flight I flew those searches were a very personal 20-30 minute long reminder to carefully manicure who I’m in contact with, what I say, how/where/when I travel, and any other records/data that I might generate. I often had to give a heads up to anyone I was traveling with (colleagues or personal friends) that we had to leave a little extra early to accommodate those searches.
> That just boils down to “you have no real rights, but if you keep your head down and dont get unlucky, you probably won’t be targeted”.
It's not about luck in this case. They want to be 'nice' so you need to actively do something, that's not the same as as "keeping your head down". Also note that as a Western visitor to China, if they have flagged you they are more likely to deny your visa or to deny you entry than to look for further trouble. In general the least waves the better.
This so profoundly naive.
These kinds of laws worry me since I have forgotten several old passwords. Being disorganized shouldn't be a criminal offense.
Ohh no, so they caught up with US border patrol?
What happens if you just say "I don't know it, only answer calls on it."
I'd imagine that's even more suspicious if you can't tell them who does know the password, or just gets lumped in with "refused to unlock your device".
The cops from the John Woo HK action flicks I've seen would love this
Wow, it sounds like they are becomming a bunch of commies.
This shit is why I don't visit China.
This shit is why I build platforms like Safecloud: https://community.safebots.ai/t/safecloud-governance-due-pro...
Wait till you hear about most of europe...
Roleplaying a parallel reallity where "Europe" is an oppressive totalitarian regime will never not be funny.
> Roleplaying a parallel reallity where "Europe" is an oppressive totalitarian regime will never not be funny.
Roleplaying inability to read will never not be funny
UK: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/law-requiring-dis...
France: https://www.fairtrials.org/articles/news/french-court-rules-...
Ireland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57468750
UK: Police can search phones to counteract human traffickers.
China: Police can search phones of dissidents, and jail them for life for criticising the Party.
You: Europe is worse than China (or will be really soon I promise).
Disingenuous.
Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
Speaking of being disingenuous, when you say "Police can search phones to counteract human traffickers", did you think critically about that at all before writing it? Given one of the stated justifications is "preventing terrorism", and the UK has been illegally arresting Palestine Action supporters as terrorists for over a year, this seems a little naive at least.
> Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
That would be nonsensical. If you have anti-Xi propaganda on your phone (which could be the reasons you mention), you have nothing to fear in Europe or in the US and a lot to fear in China.
The US is actually worse than both China and Europe because it's 18th century amendments protect human traffickers. Although they do what they can to not have to adhere to those, especially in border control.
> What about Palestine Action...
I'll limit myself to the LARP about "oppressive Europe invigilating your phone".
Nobody cares about your phone in China, if you are tourist, you are less likely have your phone searched than when visiting US. Nobody is going to ask you for your social media profiles when visiting China, unlike when visiting US. So who is here the free country?
I've spent this summer 3 weeks in China, used 2 VPNs, both of them worked fine (1 cost less than dollar, the other 4-5 dollars), so did my wife, mother and her husband, guess how many times someone cared about checking our phone.
The biggest issue was when we travelled into Beijing province where there are mo strict border checks and police found out we didn't register our accommodation (at wife's family), the scary horrible policemen then locked us for weeks and deport us from country... No, seriously, that would more likely happen in US than in China, in China they just told us to register after the weekend at local police station and let us continue into province to check Great wall, policemen in police station could not care less and be more laid back about it.
Maybe visit some other countries to have actual experiences instead spreading everywhere your feelings about other countries based on some propaganda.
> if you are tourist
It's not the tourists, it's the local dissidents that have something to fear. Or maybe try going there as a tourist, and putting up anti-party posters.
Indeed anti-Xi posts are unsafe in China, and safe in UK. Equally, anti-UK posts are safe in China and not so in the UK... (eg https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118565/documents/...). The naïveté in the claim that these are significantly different reminded me of an old joke from the USSR:
American: In America, we have freedom of speech.
USSRian: What's that?
American: I can stand in front of the White House and yell "Reagan is a moron!" and nothing will happen to me.
USSRian: Well, we have that in USSR too.
American: Really?
USSRian: Yes, of course! I go stand in the center of the Red Square and yell "Reagan is a moron" and nothing will happen to me.
I'm sorry, but you're not coherent.
You're saying anti-uk posts, you're linking some heavily editorialized article from a highly ideological media outlet about an arrest "allegedly over criticising anti-trans activists". So not anti-UK posts.
The arrest doesn't seem to have lead to any conviction. So not years of jail and reeducation camps like you get in China for dissent.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You put this things together and you claim they're the same. They're not even close. This makes you seem funny, unserious.
You're trying to convince a flat-earther with logic or physics. Western democracies are evil. Worse than China and worse than North Korea. The answer is Marxism.
EDIT: This reminds me of a Russian person I used to work with. He truly believed that elections in all western democracies were fake and rigged. That is you go and vote but the vote is predetermined. This was a long time ago but I think it was some story told in Russia about the west (basically how the west is not really free) that stuck as an unshakeable belief when he left Russia and moved to the west. This was about 40 years ago give or take. People can hold weird beliefs and conspiracy theories (like people that believe the earth is flat) and those beliefs can not be assailed with logic or facts.
The reality is(?) that western democracies with all their flaws are better than authoritarian regimes but a person can not grasp the entirety of reality. One can always find examples where people are treated unjustly or unfairly in western democracies and ofcourse one can find examples of people being "ok" in authoritarian regimes. The key is to apply the scientific method to the question vs. relying on anecdotes but the human mind is not really wired for that.
Increasingly, people in the US get convinced that Europe is pretty much like China (they usually focus on the policing of online spaces in the UK as proof of that).
There was apparently a recent push in their media to introduce and reinforce this narrative. Can’t see what good would that do, except the current leadership wanting to worsen relations with everyone.
arrest == arrest
You are most welcome to google "UK arrest for criticizing" and find articles you consider less biased. There are so many to choose from
I did that. There are no arrests for criticizing on the first page of Google.
Judging by your previous reactions, you're going to say that your Google is different, and link some news story about an arrest that isn't for criticizing and instead for supporting terrorism.
Hate to break to you that not every arrest is the same. Some include beating, and lead to jail time. Some include questioning and they lead to the arrested walking free within the day.
So you're hyperfocusing on the UK's online posting, which has nothing to do with the original subject of phone passwords, and doesn't even happen in other European countries, because UK has more proactive monitoring of online spaces by police.
And this is your proof that Europe is a tyrranical dictatorship.
How about the US? What I'm going to write smells of "whataboutism", but it's tragic how more and more of the world is becoming police states. Going to the USA, they want your social media accounts. Regardless of that, the border thugs can probably demand you unlock your devices or they'll detain you for weeks on end, without any repercussions, because that sort of lawlessness is government policy now.
In the US, not disclosing a password is explicitly protected (5th amndmnt), SCOTUS has been clear. not so for biometrics, but so for PIN/passwd
> In the US, not disclosing a password is explicitly protected (5th amndmnt),
That's great but of exactly zero help if you're trying to travel to the US and CBP (or ICE) are staring you down. Even if they don't gulag you, they can always just reject entry for any non-citizen (and these days even some citizens it seems.)
Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. In fact, part of a definition of a country is ability to practice control over its territory and who is and is not there. This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please. No non-citizen of a country has any right to be present in it, except as permitted by its government, so any country if free to make it as hard as they wish to enter for non-citizens. This may not be a good idea, but control over a territory is literally part of the definition.
> Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. […] This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please.
Or, a country could set rules that specify what they will and won't do as part of their entry controls. Just because it's a kind of an "absolute" power doesn't mean you can't still self-impose rules. The benefit being attracting more leisure and business travellers.
Which i acknowledged with "This may not be a good idea,"
They have? What was the relevant case? It was my understanding that some lower courts have ruled one way, others the opposite. There are also many nuances in particular cases (e.g., the police wanting a broad search of a device for something that may or may not be there versus them knowing for a fact a device has certain information they want).
The 5th amendment only protects citizens, and we are only talking about visiting (as far as I can tell).
Ah yes, the US government still respects the 5th amendment... like they respect the other amendments as well as the constitution.
The constitution doesn't say shooting citizens is illegal, right?
Federal agents couldn't possibly have been aware that executing people on the streets is a violation of those people's rights, so they are covered by QI.
Haha, here's some random AI generated content:
(there's more but what's the point)1. https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal...
2. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/many-trump-admi...
>The US is evil
>China makes you give phone passwords, China makes Apple give user data
>The US wiretaps 1 person
"OMG THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!"
We forget because a Republikan is in charge how good we have it in the west. We forget how bad it is elsewhere.