United States customs officers conducted a record number of searches of electronic devices last year of people travelling to the U.S., and a recent update to its directives adds new devices such as smart watches, SIM cards and flash drives to the list of things subject to search.
Officers searched 55,318 computers, cellphones and other devices in 2025, up 17.6 per cent from the 47,047 devices searched in 2024 and up 32.4 per cent from the 41,767 devices searched in 2023, according to statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
My German company has a travel directive to use clean-slate Laptops and virgin burner phones when going to the US for some time now already.
There are reasons for that…
Would be even better if your company had a travel directive not to travel to the US.
Would be kinda hard for an international company that has several work locations in the US… ;-)
Completely understandable, Americans are definitely using these searches for industrial espionage.