Customs Now Check for Porn

Going through customs, the questions are familiar: Are you carrying any firearms? Do you have large amounts of currency? Did you purchase tobacco or liquor? \n But now there may be a new one: Might there be any child porn on that laptop of yours? \n Among those whose laptop recently was checked was the Paris correspondent for CommunicationsWeek International. Journalist Kenneth Neil Cukier got off a Eurostar shuttle at London, only to be delayed by Customs and Excise and taken to an area where random searches are conducted. \n There, after presenting identification, he was asked if there was obscene pornographic material stored on his laptop. Cukier said he had none but customs officials wanted to scan the hard drive, anyway. They would have, too, but at the time their equipment only worked on PCs and Cukier had an Apple. He was free to go. \n Yes, a Customs and Excise spokesman confirmed, porn has been added to the list of items to be searched for. The spokesman declined to say what software was being used to accomplish this. Mostly, though, those being searched for porn were those who fit a certain profile, he said. \n To some extent, the effort has paid off. The spokesman said his department has apprehended several pedophiles who stored images of child porn on their hard drives. However, these discoveries were made by intercepting mail and not during searches at border crossings. \n The latest efforts by Customs and Excise officials raise some privacy concerns, according to experts in civil liberties. Software that can detect child porn might also be able to scan and collect other information stored on computers. In theory, private information could be accessed without the knowledge of the person whose laptop is being inspected. \n As for Cukier, only a few hours after his story got out on the Internet, he received a large volume of e-mail praising him for revealing his story and speaking out about his concerns. It's an odd feeling for me, he told a correspondent for the BBC. I'm just an ordinary guy who traveled across a border.