Traveling abroad with high end cryptography devices and software
In the next months I’m going to travel abroad with my laptop. I’ll visit most of the EU countries, Russia, China, Brazil, U.S. and Canada. I’m an EU citizen.
I was wondering if I could get in trouble for bringing abroad my laptop where I have some sensitive informations encrypted with 4096 bits keys. (File level encryption)
I also have disk level encryption with bitlocker on Windows 10 and sha256 with luks on the Linux /home partition.
I would like to know which is my right to refuse to unlock my laptop whether I’m intimated to do so by a customs officer. As far as I know as an EU citizen in the EU I can refuse to unlock my devices without violating any law.
Best Answer
Some countries do have so-called Key Disclosure Laws that can make it a crime to refuse to provide decryption keys. But in most cases there would need to be a criminal investigation or a court order before this can be applied.
All of this varies widely by country, so I suggest you check out Key disclosure law on Wikipedia.
For customs/border checks in particular, they can, in theory, ask for pretty much anything they want; if you refuse, devices may be confiscated and/or you may be denied entry.
Possible duplicate: Do I need to provide PIN or password for my digital accessories, when entering Canada?
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