The Infinite Brief

The Customs and Excise Act 2018 – which comes into effect today – sets guidelines around how Customs can carry out “digital strip-searches”.

The updated law makes clear that travelers must provide access – whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint – but officials would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

If people refused to comply, they could be fined up to $5000 and their device would be seized and forensically searched.