Software developer says Border Force is abusing its power after airport phone search
Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2025 12:14 pm
An Australian software developer has accused Australian border authorities of abusing their power to search his phone when returning home from a recent holiday.
Taking to Reddit to share his experience with others, the traveller, James, says he has concerns that the Customs Act allows officers at the border to force people to hand over phone passcodes as part of their powers to examine people’s belongings at the border.
He says it should not be allowed to happen in a free and democratic country.
“This experience makes me hesitant to ever go overseas again, however if I do, I will back everything up to the cloud before I take mauritania cell phone database off, and then factory reset my phone on the return flight,” he wrote on the forum, which has so far attracted more than 2,300 comments.
How it unfolded
James explains that he and his partner landed in Sydney in recent days after a 10-day holiday in Fiji.
The couple handed their arrival cards to the customs officer, which is when he says things began to go pear-shaped.
The pair were led to the bag inspection area, where they were asked to empty their pockets, including phones. The customs officer then asked for the passcodes for their mobile phones.
“Normally I would have argued at this point, but we were so tired, it was just easier to comply. So, we recited our passcodes and she wrote them on a piece of paper,” he wrote on Reddit.
Another officer then came and took their phones away
, out of sight into another room. A cursory bag search was conducted, while authorities showed no interest in their laptops, he says.
“They did not pull all the contents out of our backpacks (if we had a kilo of heroin in the bottom of one of our backpacks, they wouldn’t have found it).”
“Once she finished the half-assed inspection of our bags, we then had to sit waiting for our phones to be returned.
“After about 30 mins, they finally came back, handed our phones to us and said we were OK to leave,” he wrote on the forum.
“I would never expect that kind of treatment returning to my home country after a trip abroad,” he wrote.
Taking to Reddit to share his experience with others, the traveller, James, says he has concerns that the Customs Act allows officers at the border to force people to hand over phone passcodes as part of their powers to examine people’s belongings at the border.
He says it should not be allowed to happen in a free and democratic country.
“This experience makes me hesitant to ever go overseas again, however if I do, I will back everything up to the cloud before I take mauritania cell phone database off, and then factory reset my phone on the return flight,” he wrote on the forum, which has so far attracted more than 2,300 comments.
How it unfolded
James explains that he and his partner landed in Sydney in recent days after a 10-day holiday in Fiji.
The couple handed their arrival cards to the customs officer, which is when he says things began to go pear-shaped.
The pair were led to the bag inspection area, where they were asked to empty their pockets, including phones. The customs officer then asked for the passcodes for their mobile phones.
“Normally I would have argued at this point, but we were so tired, it was just easier to comply. So, we recited our passcodes and she wrote them on a piece of paper,” he wrote on Reddit.
Another officer then came and took their phones away
, out of sight into another room. A cursory bag search was conducted, while authorities showed no interest in their laptops, he says.
“They did not pull all the contents out of our backpacks (if we had a kilo of heroin in the bottom of one of our backpacks, they wouldn’t have found it).”
“Once she finished the half-assed inspection of our bags, we then had to sit waiting for our phones to be returned.
“After about 30 mins, they finally came back, handed our phones to us and said we were OK to leave,” he wrote on the forum.
“I would never expect that kind of treatment returning to my home country after a trip abroad,” he wrote.