r/Incogni_Official

Same as the title, if you had to explain your privacy setup to a non-tech friend in 60 seconds, what would you say?

Border phone searches in the US hit a record high

An Atlanta activist is facing a federal case after authorities allege he used a GrapheneOS security feature, a duress passcode that wipes the phone, during a border search. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says they haven't seen a case like this before.

GrapheneOS has publicly defended itself, saying: "We have no obligation to weaken any of the security protections it provides." And once a phone is wiped, the data is gone. There's no backdoor recovery.

But this case raises a much bigger question: can the use of a legitimate privacy tool be treated as evidence destruction?

It's a question that affects more people than most realize. In FY2025 alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) searched 55,424 devices, up from just 8,503 a decade ago, a whopping 551.8% increase. 

Now it's continuing to escalate, from passive tracking to the criminalization of digital self-defense. GrapheneOS is widely regarded as one of the strongest mobile security platforms available, purpose-built to resist spyware and forensic extraction. When a legitimate security feature gets framed as evidence destruction, the authorities are effectively treating cryptography as contraband.

Our Information Security Manager, Miguel Fornés, put it this way:

"In an environment where our personal data is constantly scraped, leaked, breached, demanded, and sold by opaque corporations, taking steps to defend our digital sovereignty should not be treated as an admission of guilt. The message is chilling: Lock your own digital door, and the state may treat the lock itself as suspicious."

Still, public pressure can change the course of surveillance technology. After public backlash over the weaponization of home-security cameras, Amazon reportedly ended its Ring partnership with Flock Safety. The same applies here: privacy tools shouldn't be criminalized simply because they're effective.

Read more: https://blog.incogni.com/signal-phone-wipe-legal-test/