The court ruled that a lower standard applies to manual searches, allowing the government to conduct extraordinarily invasive electronic device searches without any suspicion of wrongdoing, simply because the border officer chooses to search by hand rather than with a forensic tool.
This ruling doesn’t get into that question. Based on how courts treat refusing to take a breathalyzer, I’m guessing it opens you up to being detained for 24 hours on suspicion of a crime, giving them time to obtain a warrant. A different write-up says that if you do not give a password, they can detain your device and make you wait; but you are not required to give up the password. No other write-ups I can find mention the password issue.
I know previous rulings have said that Face Unlock does NOT count as forcing your password and is allowed by police in searches. When I go on international trips, I disable Face Unlock on my work phone before going to the airports to block that pathway since my phone contains company proprietary information and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). I have nothing embarrassing or illegal or incriminating on my personal phone, so I usually don’t bother.
This ruling doesn’t get into that question. Based on how courts treat refusing to take a breathalyzer, I’m guessing it opens you up to being detained for 24 hours on suspicion of a crime, giving them time to obtain a warrant. A different write-up says that if you do not give a password, they can detain your device and make you wait; but you are not required to give up the password. No other write-ups I can find mention the password issue.
I know previous rulings have said that Face Unlock does NOT count as forcing your password and is allowed by police in searches. When I go on international trips, I disable Face Unlock on my work phone before going to the airports to block that pathway since my phone contains company proprietary information and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). I have nothing embarrassing or illegal or incriminating on my personal phone, so I usually don’t bother.
Same for fingerprint unlock