Sponsors (5)
The bill shifts the balance at U.S. ports of entry toward stronger digital-privacy protections, transparency, and clearer legal rules for travelers—while imposing administrative burdens and limiting some rapid law‑enforcement and national‑security access to device data, potentially slowing investigations and increasing costs.
Travelers (U.S. persons, immigrants, and border communities) will face stronger protections against warrantless searches of phones and online accounts at U.S. ports of entry: the bill generally requires probable cause (felony) for device/content searches and provides exclusion remedies for unlawfully obtained data.
Immigrants, travelers, and the public will get greater transparency and oversight: the bill requires written informed-consent notices in languages people understand, recordkeeping of searches (reasons, nationality/status, extent of access), and annual DHS publication of detailed counts and breakdowns of digital searches by legal basis.
People subjected to unlawful collection of digital content (including immigration respondents) will have that content excluded from trials and agency proceedings and will be protected from adverse immigration actions based on unlawfully obtained evidence.
Law enforcement, border security, and prosecutors will face stricter limits (probable-cause felony standard, exclusionary remedies) on accessing device contents at the border, which may delay or hinder investigations and prosecutions that rely on quick access to digital evidence.
Federal agencies and private platforms will incur additional administrative, operational, and compliance costs from new consent procedures, recordkeeping, annual reporting requirements, and possible litigation over definitions and access requests.
Broad statutory definitions (e.g., of 'access credential,' 'digital contents,' and identifiers including biometrics) could enable wider routine collection or seizure of biometric and account-identifying data, potentially expanding government reach into sensitive personal information.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Requires a probable‑cause warrant to access U.S. persons' device contents or online accounts at U.S. borders, with narrow emergency exceptions, limits on seizures, consent protections, and annual DHS reporting.
Introduced April 2, 2025 by Ted Lieu · Last progress April 2, 2025
Limits government authority at U.S. borders to search or access the digital contents of electronic devices and online accounts belonging to United States persons without a probable‑cause warrant. It requires written informed‑consent procedures for requests, caps border detention for consent decisions, creates a narrow emergency exception with a seven‑day warrant deadline and destruction rules if no warrant is obtained, restricts seizures of devices absent probable cause of felony evidence, and mandates annual public reporting by DHS on border digital searches.