How likely is it for Israeli airport security to withhold my laptop and send it on later?
I’ll be visiting Jordan and Israel soon in a guided (recreational) group tour. The group will be some 20 people in size. The organiser gave us beautiful leaflets on what to expect in the countries we are visiting. I stumbled across the following sentence (translated from the German original) in the Israel leaflet and startled:
Sometimes laptops are withheld for inspection upon departure and later sent on.
I will admit that I am being slightly paranoid, but I am generally very unhappy to leave my laptop in someone else’s control if it was their idea (and not mine). Even if it is security forces. I realised in this question, that it would be a generally very bad idea to decline airport security or emigration officers their desire to search my laptop. Instead, I am seriously debating leaving my trusted laptop at home for the trip with all the drawbacks implied. But sometimes it doesn’t hurt to get a reality check.
How likely is it for one’s laptop to be withheld due to security reasons, meaning I’ll have to board my plane without it?
The reason I am asking here is the travel organiser’s word choice of gelegentlich in German. From patient information leaflets of medicine, that word is used to describe side-effects that happen to 0.1–1 % of all subjects. That already sounds like a threshold I’m uncomfortable with.
Answers should ideally supply a percentage of withheld laptops based on total laptop (or traveller) count. But ‘I’ve never seen that happen and I fly from Tel Aviv three times a week’, is also good enough.
Note that I am explicitly taking about the laptop being withheld while I board my plane back. Try not to include those counts where either I just log onto my account to prove it’s my laptop, or they take it for inspection into a neighbouring room but I can get it back before I board the plane.
In case it matters: I am a German citizen and to the best of my knowledge the entire group is entirely made up of German citizens.
Best Answer
How likely is it for one’s laptop to be withheld due to security reasons, meaning I’ll have to board my plane without it?
From the limited experience of myself and my friends - this is extremely unlikely, since what is much more likely to happen is for them to detain both you and your laptop... That is, Israeli airport security has a tendency to detain people, and I'm not aware of a tendency to detain people's devices.
But just to clarify - this is not an authoritative answer in any way.
Pictures about "How likely is it for Israeli airport security to withhold my laptop and send it on later?"
Do laptops go through airport scanners?
A laptop's hard drive is safe to put through an airport security X-ray scanner. Hard drives store their data as magnetic media; airport X-ray machines use a specific wavelength of light to operate. Unlike photo film, your hard drive is not photosensitive and therefore will be unaffected by the airport X-rays.Can I take my laptop to Israel?
You don't need to pay customs tax on the laptop as Israel doesn't have customs on laptops, but you will need to pay VAT on it, which is 17% of the total cost of the item, if its value is greater than 75$ US.Can TSA confiscate laptop?
Security Rules When taking your laptop through airport security, you must either have it in a so-called "checkpoint-friendly" bag, or you'll need to remove it from your luggage entirely. If you need to remove it, place it in a scanning bin by itself to go through the X-ray machine.Do I have to declare my laptop at the airport?
The short answer is, no. Customs and Border Protection do not need a warrant or probable cause to search your phone or laptop. Since 2013, the Department of Homeland Security has claimed legal authority to search your electronic devices without a warrant or probable cause at the U.S. border or international airports.The Science of Airport Security
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