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NZ Customs Wants Power To Require Passwords

Posted by samzenpus on from the papers-please dept.

First time accepted submitter Orange Roughy writes New Zealand customs are seeking powers to obtain passwords and encryption keys for travelers. Supposedly they will only act to obtain credentials if it was acting on 'some intelligence or observation of abnormal behaviour.' People who refuse to hand over credentials could face up to three months jail time. From the story: "Customs boss Carolyn Tremain has told MPs the department would only request travellers hand over passwords to their electronic devices if it had a reason to be suspicious about what was on them. The department unleashed a furore last week when it said in a discussion paper that it should be given unrestricted power to force people to divulge passwords to their smartphones and computers at the border. That would be without Customs officials having to show they had any grounds for suspicion."

5 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Strong public relations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    It won't happen. It's been demonstrated over and over again that people are willing and often eager to comply with the authorities' requests. More likely, other countries will follow soon and the day will come when this is law everywhere. We live in the Surveillance Age now. Deal with it.

  2. Decoy by photonic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Easy workaround: dual-booted laptop, one partition with WindowsXP and weak password, full with celebrity porn, 9/11 conspiracy documents and spyware to keep them busy for a while. Fully encrypted Linux partition for everything else.

    --
    karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
  3. "not its intention", hah, hah! by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Although the proposed power would let Customs request passwords from any traveller or do random checks on electronic devices, Tremain told a parliamentary select committee that was not its intention.

    Instead, the department would only use the power if it was acting on "some intelligence or observation of abnormal behaviour", she said.

    Protip: whenever some government official says that they won't use their power for some purpose, you know that it will be used in exactly that way or for that purpose. Case in point, RIPA in the UK, which has been used (abused) in cases related to petty crime in exactly the way it was originally claimed it would not be used.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  4. Re: Strong public relations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, why not? Getting passwords and checking laptops, phones and whatnot on the border is completely useless waste of time, and won't catch a single criminal or terrorist. People will just travel with clean machines and download anything they need while in the country. What if you don't actually KNOW the password? Company IT department will tell it on the phone to you after you have passed customs? Jailed for 3 months? What if your USB stick contains a "random" datafile? Is it encrypted or just junk? Or some data for some obscure program?

    That being said, people will just travel with clean computers, especially the ones that might have something to hide.

  5. Re: Strong public relations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    No cowards like you made the modern America and the NSA.