Podcast listener question about airport customs
We recently had a the following question sent in by a listener of our Japan Talk podcast.
I’m going to Japan this August to see my relatives and taking a few friends along with me, the problem is I heard from a couple people that, there’s a chance that if you take your laptop the Japanese border customs will check your laptop, as they’re doing in the US, and if they find any mp3 or movies downloaded they will take action.
Is this true? My relatives seem to know nothing about it and my friends and I wanted to take our laptops to dump our pictures that we take with our cameras, we would greatly appreciate some help from you or from the other listeners if they know something about this, thanks a lot!
Are there any frequent international travelers out there who can provide any information about this?
Are customs officials at Narita checking laptops for illegally downloaded mp3 and movie files?
I’ve taken four trips out of japan and back in since the beginning of the year. Wasn’t checked beyond the normal procedure. In any case, how could they possibly distinguish between legal and illegal content?
June 16th, 2008 at 7:46 pmtonywu is right on the money. While I’ve never had my laptop inspected traveling into, out of, or within Japan, there are lots of problems with what the question suggests, including:
I don’t think customs usually inspects laptops. People at the security gates do.
They don’t have time to be digging through your files. Those security lines need to move fast.
They are looking to make sure your laptop is actually a laptop and not a bomb. They should not be looking at its contents at all.
They have no way of knowing what content, if any, is “legal,” in Japan or anywhere else.
The whole thing sounds like an urban legend to me. The closest thing I’ve ever heard of is that US customs may look for pirate DVDs in the bags of travelers coming from the PRC. But I have no actual evidence of that, either.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:26 pmI’ve had my luggage checked a time or two on the way through Japanese customs, but never had them look inside my laptop. However, I do know of people having porn magazines seized.
However, I don’t recommend traveling to or through the US with illegal downloads or pirated software, especially if it’s easy to tell that’s what they are since US customs recently won a court case which allows them to search the contents of laptops. There are plenty of articles on the internet about this.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:40 pmI wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’ve taken my laptop in and out of Japan without them checking it, much less turning it on. I found having my luggage overweight (I pack a lot of stuff when I travel) more of a problem than anything else.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:33 pmVery good question, since I’ve bought a laptop last weekend and leaving next month for Japan.
And indeed the first thing I did was put some tunes and vids on the laptop. First time I went to Japan they DID open my suitcase to check what was in there so I’m getting indeed a bit cautious.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:48 pmI agree with those saying it’s highly unlikely that Japanese customs is inspecting anyone’s laptops.
More importantly, unless you have some urgent need to upload pix, why go to the bother of carrying a laptop overseas when you can just buy an extra memory chip or two. I bought a 2-gig chip at Map Camera in Shinjuku for 1,900 yen a few months ago, and that’s not even a special deal. A 4-gig chip could probably be had in Akihabara for less than 5,000 yen, and unless you’re planning one hell of a lot of photo documentation, that ought to do you.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:16 amUtter nonsense. It’s completely impossible for them to prove that you don’t have the cd of whatever it is they find in your rack at home. This would be completely impossible to prosecute.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:30 amAs was mentioned before, I suspect the seizure of Chinese pirate DVDs maybe have been what started this rumor.
Nonetheless, completely ridiculous.
When I flew into Narita last week had no such problem - spent a grand total of 30 seconds going through Customs, which is pretty normal. That being said, these laptop searches DO take place in the US, and do include seizures of laptops & mp3 players/cellphones, demands for passwords, and copying of harddrive contents for a later search by DHS. It might be going on in Japan but probably not as something to worry about - not sure how the copyright laws work in Japan but I’d imagine that if you had mp3s and movies on your laptop the burden of proof would have to be on the authorities to show that they had been illegally copied and were infringing on someone’s copyright.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:25 amNarita has something like 65,000 passengers per day. Imagine how long it would take to scan through everyones hard drive looking for a suspicious mp3. If you’re really worried (which you probably shouldn’t be *yet*) create a second user account on your machine toss in some of the usual stuff - documents pictures etc. and put it to sleep while logged into it. The odds of them searching beyond the open account are slim. Otherwise put the sensitive stuff on a thumb drive or disc. Label it as data like “senior trip pics.” or “family reunion” and the like. You would have to do really draw their attention to make them want to actually look at what was on each disk or search through your entire hard drive.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:41 amBy a stunning coincedence, just read an online article posted about this practice this very day;
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/news.asp?id=48804
June 17th, 2008 at 10:25 amI just went through customs, and as NaughtyFerret said, it was about 30 seconds. No problem with the laptop!
I was a little surprised at the cost of ssd in Japan, though. I bought about a dozen 4GB chips in America before I left at about $15 each. I figured I could always use them for omiage!
June 17th, 2008 at 10:21 pmI agree with the “impossible to prosecute” sentiment…but I think there’s more danger if your file is titled: “this is illegal! Prosecute this!” - or something along those lines.
That might give them a warrant to go back to your home wherever it is and scour your apartment to make sure you don’t have the original. Doubt they care or have time to mess with that.
Much simpler solution: keep all downloads on an external hard-drive and leave it at home when you travel.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:34 amNope, had no problem during the times I went to Japan. My 9300 Dell Insp. Laptop was never inspected with Japanese Customs booting up and snooping around. It was x-rayed in a bin and that was it.
I would suggest if your worried, put a password on the BIOS and then claim you forgot what the password is ….. lol =D
June 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pmBe careful they might drop a brick of floresent green pine smelling Hydoponic grown Marajuana in your Laptop bag…… lol (;% ””
<-refering to previous article on this blog about custom agent loosing weed used to test dogs.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:50 pmHmm seems like that all might change come this July when the G8 happens, take a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
June 19th, 2008 at 10:30 am