[jetti]

"possibly even portals to HIPAA/other PII data of a more commercial nature)."

You bring up a good point about HIPAA. I work in health care and we are allowed to keep a work email client on our phone provided that we keep control of our phone at all time (to keep PHI/HIPAA info safe). A border agent searching through my phone could be considered a HIPAA violation and would have to be reported. Not sure if anything would come out of it fine wise for the company but it would still be a nightmare for compliance.

[adekok]

One interpretation is that you're responsible for someone else breaking the law. If it's a violation, then the border guard committed the violation.

Another interpretation is that you cannot possible obey the law. If the border guard has the legal right to demand access to the HIPAA protected data, and you can't legally give him access... then the law enforcement officials are forcing you to break the law.

With no punishment for them, of course.

There's one set of rules for normal people, and another for law enforcement. How does this keep me safe?

[jetti]

"One interpretation is that you're responsible for someone else breaking the law. If it's a violation, then the border guard committed the violation."

The problem with that is that they aren't a covered entity and thus shouldn't have access to the data. Because they aren't a covered entity HIPAA rules do not apply to them.