Yes, Canada, the UK, and Australia all have policies to ask travelers for their passwords for laptops/cell phones, and you'll be sent back home (if you're a foreigner) or arrested (if you're a citizen, at least in Canada [1]) if you refuse.

1: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/alain-philippon-to...

I had a friend get refused entry to Australia because they made him open his Facebook messenger, and they found out he was planning to work on a tourist visa.

They only did that though because he just finished a 3 month tourist visa, left the country for a week, and then came back with another 3 months.

Seems to me that's the digital equivalent of showing up on a tourist visa (or via the visa waiver program) with a bunch of resumes printed in your luggage.

UK citizen here. I'm not aware of any policy in the UK that forces travellers to hand over their device passwords - i.e. not in the same draconian way that's happening in the US. Border control in the UK is pretty well overstretched as it is. I don't think they've got the resources to perform this type of intrusion, even if they wanted to.

From 2013: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10177765/Travellers-mo...

Also a case in 2016 of a UK citizen being arrested for refusing to give his password to UK border police: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/25/campaign-gro...

Yeah, but I don't think it's a routine thing (I'll check with my pal who runs a borders team to be sure). I think you need to have been a specific target and person of interest for things to go that far.

That's pretty much the same "but it only happens to a small fraction of people so it's okay" deflection argument that you can say about the US policy as well, which you called "draconian".

I don't know if it depends on where you come from, but I went to Canada a couple years ago, by plane. No hassle at all, they just asked me if I had Malaria or knew anyone with Malaria, asked me what I was there for (Mozilla workweek, but not for work!), and they sent me on my merry way. Not even a baggage inspection, let alone a computer/cellphone inspection.

I think a lot also depends on which border guard you get and what their 'feel' for you is. I was in the US a few month ago and got waved through after 30 seconds and a couple of basic questions (might have helped that I was travelling with my wife and daughter). When I was in Canada a few years ago I got called into a separate room and asked a bunch of questions about what I do for a living, what my parents do for a living, how long I was planning to stay, how much money I had with me etc. etc.

I always felt the Canadian border questions were mostly targeted towards avoiding people coming in to take jobs that could go to Canadian locals.

This was the Canada / US border.

Yes. I’ve had my electronics thoroughly searched twice going to Canada.

Essentially every country in the world asserts the right to carry out a thorough inspection of anything crossing its border.

I'm not sure why people think electronics would be an exception to this general rule (which has been in effect, like, forever... the only exception that comes to mind is diplomatic pouches).

> I'm not sure why people think electronics would be an exception

I'll take a swing at this.. one reason is that modern electronics contain - both directly and through remote access to other systems via stored cookies, etc - far more private and/or commercially-sensitive information than almost any other widespread physical object that may cross a border. In the 1960s a (non-spy) traveler faced a search of some clothing, cash-on-hand, and perhaps some food/snacks and prescription drugs. Far different from facing a search of every photo you've ever taken, every private message you've written to your spouse, or the full IP of your successful software company, etc.

this is surprising to me. my experience with the Canadian border guard is that they are super chill