CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones

[LiberalArkie]

JUL 3, 2025 1:19 PM

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is asking tech companies to pitch digital forensics tools that are designed to process and analyze text messages, pictures, videos, and contacts from seized phones, laptops, and other devices at the United States border, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

The agency said in a federal registry listing that the tools it’s seeking must have very specific capabilities, such as the ability to find a “hidden language” in a person’s text messages; identify specific objects, “like a red tricycle,” across different videos; access chats in encrypted messaging apps; and “find patterns” in large datasets for “intel generation.” The listing was first posted on June 20 and updated on July 1.

CBP has been using Cellebrite to extract and analyze data from devices since 2008. But the agency said that it wants to “expand” and modernize its digital forensics program. Last year, CBP claims, it did searches on more than 47,000 electronic devices—which is slightly higher than the approximately 41,500 devices it searched in 2023 but a dramatic rise from 2015, when it searched just more than 8,500 devices.

The so-called request for information (RFI) comes amid a string of reports of CBP detaining people entering the US, sometimes questioning them about their travel plans or political beliefs, and at times collecting and searching their phones. In one high-profile incident in March, a Lebanese professor at Brown University’s medical school was sent back to Lebanon after authorities searched her phone and alleged she was “sympathetic” to the former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in September 2024.

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https://www.wired.com/story/cbp-wants-new-tech-to-search-for-hidden-data-on-seized-phones/

[58Sunliner]

1. Carry a burner phone.

[CrispyQ]

8. Depending what you're going to use it for, before you buy a burner or activate it, read this article.

There's a whole section about how to activate your burner if you don't want the phone associated with you. The Good Wife had an entire season that focused on the NSA & some of their cell phone tracking techniques. This whole article was good.

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/01/23/activists-guide-securing-your-smartphone/

[58Sunliner]

10. Good article!

[LiberalArkie]

9. It is usually easy on an iPhone

Log out of the appleid before getting on plane or entering country.
Delete all the individual apps like Facebook, reddit, instagram, bank apps etc. Delete the safari history

delete all the contacts but a few needed like doctors offices, pharmacy. electric company etc.
You phone will be pristine dumb phone with data but no personal data. Just like someone who only uses it as a phone.

When you log back into appleid it will restore.

[58Sunliner]

11. I suggest the article above, more to consider than just deleting apps.

[LiberalArkie]

12. The main thing is the appleID. and then rebooting. The phone will not have any email, txt messages

web links, web history or contacts or photos..

A lot of the apps Like Facebook store that data in it and online, no app - no data.

Without being logged in via appleid no access to any of it.

And it looks like just a cellphone without any personal info.. Much like my corp phone when I was working

And nothing to suspect at all about it. Just a work phone sir.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. The red tricyclist is going to crash and burn in the 2026 horse race. How's that? Decode that? . . . .nt

[tulipsandroses]

3. Unbelievable. Burner phone companies will make a killing

Over the next 3.5 years. Anyone traveling should only travel with a burner.

Even if you didn’t say anything that might piss off the orange asshole, so many of us have sensitive info on our phones. Many of us that work from home have company apps with clients lists.There were instances of US citizens having their phones taken, one was a lawyer who had client lists on his phone.
Where are the folks who were outraged by the Bush policies after 9/11?
Are they giving trump a pass?

[Jacson6]

4. If you are traveling internationally your best option is not to bring your cell phone.

You can buy a throwaway phone in that country and toss it before you leave.

I mean in SA they could have your head chopped off for allegedly having a drawing of Mohammad.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Better solution than conspicuous consumption trashing stuff, oddly, is to buy a second phone real cheap

Move the SIM chip to the second phone just before travel and back on return. Keep a few essential contacts (family) on the second phone and maybe one social app. Completely uninstall the social app and geolocation app just before return.

[RainCaster]

6. Reboot the phone after uninstall

That will help your phone delete items that have been erased from NAND.

[hunter]

7. I'm ceratin this technology is already built into our phones.

Maybe Trump can make a deal with China to unlock it.