Suspicious Travellers Required to Share Passwords to Gadgets at Australian and New Zealand Customs

Australia and New Zealand take an Orwellian stance as to personal data of foreign guests

Tue, 2/10/2018 - 11:46

Suspicious Travellers Required to Share Passwords to Gadgets at Australian and New Zealand Customs

Cover image via U.Today

Travellers to Australia and New Zealand now face a hard choice – give up passwords to their laptops or smartphones or be fined.

Now all personal data of tourists, including passwords to crypto wallets can fall into the hands of customs officials if they decide to inspect their gadgets.

The report came from Willy Woo, an old Bitcoin analyst, and Andreas Antonopoulos, a Blockchain expert, who travelled to New Zealand recently and shared their impressions in Twitter:

It was nice visiting New Zealand twice. Pity I won't be going back... In today's society this kind of orwellian bullshit is unacceptable. https://t.co/9PIZAJHK8T
— Andreas M. Antonopoulos (@aantonop) October 1, 2018

NZ customs make you pay fines; Australian officials may put you in jail

The New Zealand customs officers apply fines of $5,000 to those who won’t provide passwords to access their confiscated gadgets. The official title for this is ‘refusing digital search’.

Sun, 09/30/2018 - 08:37

The Fight For Democracy in the Crypto Space

Australia has recently implemented similar policy but they do not simply make you pay $5,000, but may send you to prison for not giving up your passwords (or sharing your personal data with them). You can lose your freedom for a period of ten years.

What this is all about

In an attempt to explain its new policy, the Australian Department of Home Affairs has posted a note that such rigorous measures are obligatory since encryption and other methods of digital protection are often used by terrorists, for money-laundering, sex offence of children and other type of criminals to hide and cover their illegal activities. Modern technologies, as the statement goes, are a big hindrance to law-enforcement agencies to access personal data of suspects.

How can it threaten crypto on your wallet?

Despite the friendly approach that Australia has taken to Blockchain and digital coins, like partnering with IBM on the state authorities level or launching a platform for paying utility bills with crypto, now customs officers may legally demand access to your crypto wallets in gadgets.

Sun, 09/09/2018 - 08:49

No, Terrorists Do Not Use Cryptocurrencies, at Least For Now

However, the crypto community is convinced that customs officials are not entitled to impose taxes on crypto holdings that do not belong to foreign citizens.

About the author

Yuri Molchan

Yuri is interested in technology and technical innovations. He has been writing about DLT and crypto since 2017. Believes that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a potential to transform the world in the future in many of its aspects. He has written for multiple crypto media outlets. His articles have been quoted by such crypto influencers as Tyler Winklevoss, John McAfee, CZ Binance, Max Keiser, etc.