US Senator Wyden: Border Agents Are Searching Phones Without Warrants and Storing Data for 15 Years
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden says his office was informed this summer that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is building a massive database with content seized from Americans’ cellphones at the border. Without warrants, the agency permits thousands of employees to search the database “for any reason."
- “In a June 20, 2022 briefing to my office, CBP estimated that it forensically examines and then saves data from ‘less than 10,000' phones per year — which typically include text messages, call logs, contact lists, and in some cases photos and other sensitive data — in a central database. CBP confirmed during this briefing that it stores this deeply personal data taken, without a warrant signed by a judge, from Americans’ phones for 15 years and permits approximately 2,700 DHS personnel to search this data at any time, for any reason.”
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/download/wyden-letter-to-cbp-on-border-searches-of-devices
