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Tech Fix
Here are some best practices for safeguarding sensitive personal data.
Brian X. Chen is the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times and author of Tech Fix, a weekly column about the tech we use.
April 30, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET
When I travel to Asia this summer, I plan to leave my iPhone at home. Instead, I’ll pack a different phone lacking my staple apps, like Instagram, Slack and Signal. It won’t even be logged in to my work email.
No, I’m not planning a digital detox. I’m choosing to travel with what’s known as a burner phone because my personal device contains sensitive data that I don’t want others, particularly U.S. border protection officers, to search.
For over a decade, the federal government has had the authority to conduct border searches of travelers’ personal electronics, including phones, laptops and tablets. In recent years, such inspections have steadily increased, though they happen to only a small portion of people entering the United States.
Last year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reported that it had conducted roughly 43,000 electronics searches, up from about 38,000 in 2023.
To be clear, I may be particularly paranoid as a journalist who is constantly working to protect confidential sources from being outed, so a burner phone is an extreme measure that most people won’t find practical or even necessary.
But in recent incidents, travelers have been denied entry into the United States in part because of phone data, such as photos of guns and social media posts about protests.
