CBP Device Searches Rise, Agency Withholds Border and Citizenship Breakdown

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers searched 52,080 travelers' phones, laptops and other electronic devices between Oct. 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, a 32 per cent increase over the 39,251 searches recorded in the same period last year. The figures, obtained by CBC News, approach the full-year record of 55,424 searches logged during fiscal 2025.

Of the 52,080 searches this fiscal year, 47,517 were classified as basic inspections that officers can conduct without reasonable suspicion. Another 4,564 were advanced searches, which require reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity or a national security concern and permit an officer to analyze or copy a device's contents.

The agency did not disclose how many searches took place at the Canadian border versus the Mexican border, nor did it provide a breakdown between airports and land crossings. CBP also withheld the total number of travelers who entered the country during the period and the number of searches involving U.S. citizens compared with non-citizens, details generally included in its annual reports.

CBP public affairs officer Jessica Turner said the searches in 2025 affected a small share of the 419 million travelers who entered the country. "CBP's border searches of electronic device numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and year-over-year only 0.01 per cent of travelers have their devices searched," Turner wrote in an emailed response. She said the searches target digital contraband, terrorism-related content and information relevant to admissibility.

Esha Bhandari, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said the increase warrants greater congressional oversight. "It's hard to speculate on the reasons for the increase because the government doesn't explain it," she said. Bhandari said aggregate figures make it difficult to assess what is happening at crossings and noted accounts her group has heard of travelers questioned about political opinions, writing or religious practice.

In January, CBP updated its guidelines to cover flash drives, SIM cards, GPS systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems and smart watches. The revision also added smuggling of narcotics, firearms or other goods, and transnational theft of proprietary information to the purposes of the searches. Bhandari called the changes limited to "a few procedures at the margins."

Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition, said the rise cannot be evaluated without knowing where searches occurred and how many people crossed. She pointed to the World Cup this summer as a possible factor in a more diverse mix of visitors, along with closer co-operation between Canadian and U.S. border services on human smuggling and the Ryan Wedding case. Dawson said one in 9,000 crossings leads to a U.S. inspection, compared with one in 14,000 on the Canadian side. The Canada Border Services Agency says its 2026 statistics are not yet available.