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Australian Border Force searched phones of 10k travellers in past two years

Exclusive: About one in four people stopped at border had some data copied from their devices by Australian Border Force

The agency does not provide information on the success rate for searches, but has said a phone would only be seized where officers suspected it had “special forfeited goods” such as “illegal pornography, terrorism-related material and media that has been, or would be, refused classification”. In a recent NSW district court judgment, a 39-year-old Maclean man, James Dean Apps, was sentenced to two years and six months in jail after Border Force officers discovered hundreds of images of child abuse material on his device. “The Human Rights Law Centre has consistently raised concerns around the lack of transparency, safeguards and oversight of ABF’s extraordinary powers to seize electronic devices at borders,” he said.

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