Stanford CIS

Cybersecurity for the travelling scientist

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"It can be tempting to try to hide information or use technological tricks such as 'duress passwords' that, if used instead of the genuine one, unlock the device but keep a portion of the data hidden and encrypted. But Jennifer Granick, who studies cybersecurity law at Stanford University in California, warns against such strategies. “You don't want to lie to a government agent. That can be a crime.” And border guards are not likely to be sympathetic to the argument that a researcher has a legal duty to prevent anyone from seeing confidential data.

“Medical records, trade secrets — there are a lot of data that you have a legal obligation to protect. Border agents are not experts in these areas of law, they're not going to necessarily care about that,” Granick says. “So you have to think about how you're going to protect your data.”"