This app's 'travel mode' could keep your data safe from border guards

This app's 'travel mode' could keep your data safe from border guards

Over the course of the past few years, international travel has taken on an extra level of invasiveness as US officials demand travellers unlock phones or hand over social media passwords in order to enter the country.

Many travellers, even US citizens, feel compelled to comply with these requests - sadly accepting that a forfeit of privacy is a prerequisite to return home.

But it doesn't have to be that way. A new tool proposes to put a limit on just what border guards will be able to access during a search.

Options for securing your data already exist, though they are tricky at best and potentially illegal at worst.

You can wipe your phone before flying, for example, but that's a huge pain and likely to set off red flags.

Lying to CBP agents about the contents of your device? Yeah, don't do that - you could be charged with a crime.

So what to do? 1Password, a password-managing service, thinks it's found a solution... as long as you're down to shell out for the $35.88 annual membership.

The company recently introduced a new feature, called Travel Mode, which it believes gives travellers an edge when it comes to keeping their online accounts private at the border.

"[Travel Mode] protects your 1Password data from unwarranted searches when you travel," Rick Fillion, a developer at AgileBits (the company behind 1Password), explains in a blog post.

"When you turn on Travel Mode, every vault will be removed from your devices except for the ones marked 'safe for travel.'"

Your "vaults" are essentially encrypted folders within your password manager account that hold login credentials to different online accounts of your choosing.

But wait, there's more.

Read the full article here.

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