Question on Hard Drives, Laptops, and Other Devices Being Checked at the Airport

[MrDeedsHistory]

Hi, I'm new here. I'm from the Philippines. Me and my family successfully applied for permanent residency in Canada, and are planning to touch down next month on June 11. We are currently taking down items that we are going to bring to Canada.

My concern though is that many of the devices that we are going to bring to Canada (laptops, smartphones, hard drives, etc.) have videos (movies and TV series), music and video games that either me, my brother or my father have downloaded on the internet via torrent (i.e., pirated). Meanwhile I have very important files like immigration papers and documents for university application both in my laptop and in my external drive, and they're mixed in the devices with the pirated stuff. I've read some things about this, and I've been getting different responses about this scenario.

Generally, to my knowledge, customs officers in Canadian airports would ask people if they can check laptops and external drives, but only in random instances, and from what I've read, rarely.

From some posts in different forums, they say that what the customs officers are really looking for is child pornography and not pirated files. In other posts, they say that they will be checking if you do have pirated files.

Some say that this only happens in Arab Gulf countries and not in Canada. There are some people who say that they carried external drives and/or laptops with them that contain pirated files and they weren't searched. However I suspect that these were people who are not new permanent residents to Canada.

I'm not satisfied with the answers I've been getting, since they are all scattered around the web and I'm not sure if they apply to new permanent residents. This leaves me with several questions:

1. How often to customs officers search through the laptops, devices and external hard drives of new permanent residents?
2. Do customs officers really know if a file is pirated or torrented or not?
3. Would customs officers inspect the device for pirated material if it is listed in the (two) Personal Effects Accounting Document forms B4A and BFE (I'm assuming it's the same as goods to declare)? In connection to that question would I evade customs inspection if I put my laptop and my external drive in my carry-on baggage?
4. Is there any way I could convince the customs people to keep off of my stuff? Would telling them that I have very important files in these devices stop them from searching them?
4. If I really can't have pirated/torrented in my external drive, laptop and other devices, is there a way to preserve around 1TB of files? Or at least have these devices completely clean of pirated stuff and leave the important files in?

Any Filipinos who have had permanent status recently who also brought laptops/external drives/devices with them to Canada can share some experiences on this, as I am very worried about the possibility of getting caught.

Thanks

 

[Bs65]

This has nothing to do whether someone is a new PR or not or their nationality
See the guidance and rights here here https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/public-safety-and-law-enforcement/your-privacy-at-airports-and-borders/

1)no way to tell how often given if CBSA published how often that would remove the element of surprise but laptop searches in reality probably do not happen that often no way to tell.
2)technically I guess any movie on a harddrive could be said to have broken copyright by copying it or downloading it so the presence of a lot of such files could be a giveaway and hard to explain
3)customs in any country whether Canada or not can inspect anything they chose checked baggage, carry on or shipped. Putting in carry on wont make any difference if they want to check they will.
4)trying to convince customs not to look will just give them a reason to look and they dont really care if you have important files or not.
5)whether you have pirated stuff or not is upto you. Chances are nobody in customs will bother no way to know in advance and all depends how you present your self to them whether you give them any reason to look further.

I guess ultimately decision is yours if you are worried as to whats more important saving a few pirated films that you might watch occasionally or making a succesful trouble free landing. I know which choice I would make and anyway not that I am suggesting it but you can always download your favorites again.

As for keeping the important files backup them up to another external hd or even better create a cloud account and retrieve them post landing. Very easy to over think things and everyone here will likely share a different experience but that never means would be the same for you, you have to make a decision and go with it.

 

[NetMecca]

This has nothing to do whether someone is a new PR or not or their nationality
See the guidance and rights here here https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/public-safety-and-law-enforcement/your-privacy-at-airports-and-borders/

1)no way to tell how often given if CBSA published how often that would remove the element of surprise but laptop searches in reality probably do not happen that often no way to tell.
2)technically I guess any movie on a harddrive could be said to have broken copyright by copying it or downloading it so the presence of a lot of such files could be a giveaway and hard to explain
3)customs in any country whether Canada or not can inspect anything they chose checked baggage, carry on or shipped. Putting in carry on wont make any difference if they want to check they will.
4)trying to convince customs not to look will just give them a reason to look and they dont really care if you have important files or not.
5)whether you have pirated stuff or not is upto you. Chances are nobody in customs will bother no way to know in advance and all depends how you present your self to them whether you give them any reason to look further.

I guess ultimately decision is yours if you are worried as to whats more important saving a few pirated films that you might watch occasionally or making a succesful trouble free landing. I know which choice I would make and anyway not that I am suggesting it but you can always download your favorites again.

As for keeping the important files backup them up to another external hd or even better create a cloud account and retrieve them post landing. Very easy to over think things and everyone here will likely share a different experience but that never means would be the same for you, you have to make a decision and go with it.

I agree with this.

My experience suggests that customs, if searching, would only be interested in things that are illegal in Canada. I agree with a cloud or online storage account as being the better (and safer) solution all round.

Good luck

 

[MrDeedsHistory]

This has nothing to do whether someone is a new PR or not or their nationality

So this applies to visitors as well?

I agree with a cloud or online storage account as being the better (and safer) solution all round.

How will I fit 1TB+ of files in a cloud website.... that's the problem.

laptop searches in reality probably do not happen that often no way to tell.

So I guess I have to risk it by looking presentable.The last time I was in Canada, it was for vacation, and my smartphone has several torrented movies in it. They didn't inspect it.