Searches of cellphones, laptops by U.S. customs up more than 32% so far this year

Elizabeth Thompson · CBC News

· Posted: Oct 23, 2026 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

Searches of electronic devices such as phones and laptops of travellers entering the United States are up more than 32 per cent this year and are on track to set a new record, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data obtained by CBC News.

The numbers show that during the first three quarters of its 2026 fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, CBP officers searched 52,080 electronic devices. During the same period the previous year, CBP searched 39,251 devices.

In fact, CBP searched almost as many devices in the first three quarters of 2026 as it did during the entire 2025 fiscal year, when a record 55,424 devices were searched.

According to CBP, 47,517 were basic searches, which can be done by an officer without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Another 4,564 were advanced searches, which allow an officer who believes there is a reasonable suspicion of an activity that violates the law or a national security concern to analyze and/or copy the contents of an electronic device. 

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However, the customs agency won't reveal what percentage of the searches took place at the northern border with Canada or the southern border with Mexico. Nor would it provide a breakdown between searches at airports versus land borders or a breakdown by land border posts.

It also would not say how many travellers entered the U.S. during the first three quarters of 2026 or how many searches targeted U.S. citizens versus non-U.S. citizens — numbers it generally provides in its annual reports.

Jessica Turner, public affairs officer with CBP, said in 2025, the searches only affected a small fraction of the 419 million travellers who entered the U.S. and searches of electronic devices "remains exceedingly rare."

"CBP's border searches of electronic device numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and year-over-year only 0.01 per cent of travellers have their devices searched," Turner wrote in an emailed response.

"These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content and information relevant to visitor admissibility, all of which play a critical role in national security."

However, Esha Bhandari, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, says the increase in searches of electronic devices by U.S. border officials requires more congressional oversight and accountability.

"It's hard to speculate on the reasons for the increase because the government doesn't explain it," she said. "But I think what we're seeing is a classic example of when the government has the power to do something, it will exercise that authority to the detriment of travellers' privacy."

Bhandari said the aggregate numbers provided by the U.S. government make it difficult to "really get a handle on what's going on." 

However, she said the anecdotal evidence her group hears is "certainly troubling."

"They're often asked questions at the border about their political opinions or perhaps their writing or things related to their religious practice that might suggest that's the reason they've been singled out for a search," she said.

In January, CBP updated its guidelines governing searches of electronic devices at the border to spell out that it included devices like flash drives, SIM cards, GPS systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems and smart watches. It also added smuggling narcotics, firearms or other goods and transnational theft of proprietary information and digital contraband to the list of crimes the searches are designed to detect.

But Bhandari says the new directives only changed "a few procedures at the margins." She believes the increase in searches may have more to do with advances in technology and the failure of federal courts to put limits on the government's authority to conduct them.

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Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition, which focuses on cross-border issues, said the increase in searches is difficult to assess without knowing where they took place and the number of people who travelled to the U.S. during that period.

"These searches are taking place not just at land borders, but also at seaports, at airports and there's lots of people coming in and out. And we had World Cup this summer," she said.

"It could be a greater diversity of traveller coming in."

Dawson said she is also seeing more focus on border security and more co-operation between Canadian and U.S. border services in areas such as human smuggling and the Ryan Wedding case.

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"Having more scrutiny at the border is actually a positive in many ways," she said.

While Canadians may be alarmed by stories shared on social media of device searches at the border, Dawson points out that the practice is still rare. She said one in 9,000 border crossings result in a U.S. inspection and one in 14,000 crossings result in a search on the Canadian side of the border.

In recent years, Canadian officials have searched a much smaller percentage of devices at the border than their U.S. counterparts and the numbers have been dropping. Canada Border Services Agency officials say statistics on the number of electronic device searches carried out in 2026 are not yet available.