In the first week of October I was asked to write a piece on new laws in New Zealand giving Customs Border Police the write to search citizen smartphones without a warrant. This topic as well as telecommunications interception is something that I have been studying for close to two decades. I put everything aside to ham out a 1500 word piece. The Conversation’s editor, Shelley Hepworth provided a critical restructuring of the piece, introduced headings, and performed major incisions to get the piece down to a readable length.

Within 24 hours of its release on 7 October 2018, the piece had 40,000 or so impressions. Five days later, the piece has been syndicated by so many news outlets that I’ve literally lost count. It has received over 516,000 impressions. The most important of these were in the Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean markets, with a significant footprint in the United States. Interestingly, despite that Canada has hefty laws up to $50,000CND not much interest in the article has occurred there.

October 8, “What To Do If Airport Security Demands Access To Your Phone Or Laptop”, Gizmodo, https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/10/what-to-do-if-airport-security-demands-access-to-your-phone-or-laptop/

October 8, “Travelling overseas? What to do if a border agent demands access to your digital device”, Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/9mctq6/travelling_overseas_what_to_do_if_a_border_agent/

October 10, “Travelling overseas? What to do if a customs officer demands access to your digital device“, Stuff.nz, https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/107727171/travelling-overseas-what-to-do-if-a-customs-officer-demands-access-to-your-digital-device