Border Force officers have seized or retained more than 1,000 devices from travellers entering Australia in the past five years but the agency cannot say how many of those interventions led to criminal prosecutions, prompting human rights experts to question the appropriateness of the powers.
Officials either seized the 1,138 devices – including mobile phones and computers – after searches at the border, or the devices were abandoned, or retained as evidential material. In 2017 Border Force kept 266 devices. This figure increased to 366 in 2018 and 367 in 2019, before dropping to 84 in 2020 and 55 in 2021.
