Travel can make us feel free by taking us outside our usual social ecosystem. No coworkers, no exes, no reputation to manage. When we’re outside our own country, we can be anybody we want to be.
Yet we still have our personal baggage. Some of it is packed in our suitcase, like our passport and medication. Some of it on our phones or out in the cloud: bank accounts, prescriptions and subscriptions, social media accounts, streaming service accounts, hotel reservations, itineraries, messages, political opinions, happy birthdays, assorted grievances and good wishes. A lot of that baggage is very valuable, the control of it very important for our future.
When we’re crossing international borders and immersing ourselves in a culture that’s different from our own, we can be putting this baggage at risk. A few weeks ago, I heard about two Canadians who were detained by U.S. immigration when disembarking from a Caribbean cruise in Miami. According to a social media post that has since been deleted, border-protection agents spent two hours subjecting them to relentless questioning, scrutinizing their apps, photos and messages. They were told to hand over personal passwords. Their social media accounts—including browsing history on gay porn websites and chatting history on hookup apps—were reviewed before they were released. They weren’t charged with anything, but the incident left them feeling humiliated.
Once we’re across the border or out of the airport, we’re among strangers, perhaps some very sexy ones. The guy you met online ten minutes ago knows nothing about you except for your stats. Should you tell him your room number? Once he’s there, should you leave him alone with your open suitcase while you go get ice? Should you be showing him photos of your home and your car? Should you friend him immediately on all the social media apps you use?
Nobody wants to be paranoid. Most travellers pass through security without a problem. Most flirtations and hookups don’t result in problems like theft or stalking (though disappointment and STIs are certainly possible). But even the most TMI travellers value a certain level of privacy.
Here are some ways to protect your privacy abroad while still having a wild time.
Treat your phone like a public document
At many international borders, agents have broad authority to inspect your phone. In many countries, they can ask you to unlock it, and in some of them, they can detain you or deny entry if you refuse. Your device doesn’t just contain messages—it contains your sexual history, private photos, contact and apps that reveal where you’ve been and who you’ve met. Before crossing borders, minimize what’s exposed. Log out of sensitive apps—this might even include your map app, which may have a record of where you’ve been and where you plan to go. Remove access to cloud-storage services. Yet remember that having almost no apps on your phone will make it seem like you’re hiding something, which could escalate an investigation.
The goal isn’t secrecy—it’s reducing unnecessary vulnerability during a moment when you have very little leverage. Specifically when it comes to travel to and from the U.S., American courts have ruled that passwords (which are stored in your brain and which can be considered a form of speech) have some constitutional protection that biometrics like fingerprints and face recognition do not. Those who think they may want to refuse a request to unlock their phone should disable the biometrics before leaving home. It’s also a good idea to disable biometrics when visiting destinations where violent crime is a serious problem. Fingerprint and face unlock can be used to open your phone without your active cooperation; for example, a criminal can hold your head still or hold your finger on a screen to gain access. While using a code restores a level of personal agency, in a situation where you may be risking your life by refusing the demands of a criminal, cooperation may be the least-worst option. That’s another reason for removing any life-ruining information (for example, the list of banking passwords in your note-taking app) from your phone before a trip.
Giving face, saving face
Your face is the single most traceable piece of information you have. A clear face photo can be reverse-image searched, screenshotted or shared. If fellow hookup app users aren’t using their face as their public photo, should you be using yours? If you’re in a small, unfamiliar place, would you mind running into someone in person who you haven’t met but who has seen you online? Many experienced travellers use album photos on apps that can’t be easily saved, or wait until basic trust is established before sending a face pic. In countries where homosexuality is illegal, sharing images or texts that tie your identity to sexual activity should be avoided. At the very least, send face shots separately; your face shouldn’t be visible in the many photos of your junk that you’re sending to everyone online.
Again, for travellers who can’t resist the urge to share pics, make sure identifying information—window views, signage, licence plates, numbers on buildings—have been removed from the background before hitting send. Even small details can narrow down where you’re staying and how to find you.
Shut the backdoor to accessing your whole life
Several gay hookup apps allow users to add social media links to their profiles, which allows anyone on the app to visit their mainstream online lives and see public posts, perhaps including information about their job, the general vicinity of their home, their relationships and their travels. Using social media, someone can determine if someone is away from home, for example, or where to find them on a Thursday night. We may shrug and say, “It’s all out there, anyway.” But remember that most Facebook and Instagram accounts don’t have such detailed information about a person’s sexual preferences. Bringing those two identities together, especially in an unfamiliar place, increases the risk of something bad happening.
Protect your friends and family
Your privacy may have been breached before you left home. The well-known “Friend in Distress” scam, which dates back to the early 2000s, involves scammers using a fake account, or hacking into someone’s real phone number or social media profile, to contact their friends and family to ask for money. People who are known to travel frequently can be especially vulnerable. “Hey Jake, it’s Paul. Oh my God, I was just robbed in Paris. They stole my phone so I’m sending this message from the hotel’s business centre. Can you send me $650 so I can pay the hotel and the fee for a new passport?” Firstly, use two-step verifications and other security measures to prevent accounts from being hacked. Then, before any trip, tell your close contacts that you’ll always provide an identifying piece of information in the case of an emergency: “It’s Paul, I was robbed in Paris. So you know it’s really me: I threw up in your kitchen sink on your 21st birthday.” Those on the other side of the scam should always try to contact the person in distress via another channel—if the “victim” reached out on Facebook, try them by phone call, text or email—or ask for some kind of identifying information before taking action.
Don’t lead with your hotel name or room number
Giving out your exact hotel immediately removes your ability to disengage safely if things go sideways. Even setting aside criminal intent, if someone becomes persistent, unstable or simply unwelcome, you don’t want them to know exactly where to find you. In unfamiliar places, meet in public first when possible. If you host, give the hotel name only when the person is on their way, and never include the room number until they’ve arrived in the lobby and messaged you. Withholding your room number and meeting someone in the lobby gives you a final layer of control. You can see them clearly, assess their demeanour and change your mind without exposing your private space.
Keep conversations off your primary phone number
We’ve all been there: “Hey dude, let’s move this to WhatsApp?” It may be more convenient to set up dates by text or WhatsApp, but keeping communications in the hookup app, where blocking and ignoring fellow users is a normal part of the experience, may keep you safer. Your phone number is a hard-to-change identifier tied to your real identity. Once someone has your number, they have a line to you long after you’ve left the country. If their intentions are nefarious, a phone number is one of the key pieces of information that criminals can use to hack into accounts. For providing contact info to people you meet in bars, clubs or cruising venues, have a secondary email address or social media account that you won’t miss if things turn toxic.
Trust your gut
Privacy breaches often begin with subtle discomfort: someone pushing for your hotel name too quickly, asking invasive personal questions or resisting meeting in public first. None of these guarantee bad intent, but they can signal misaligned boundaries. You don’t owe access to anyone who hasn’t earned your trust. An uneasy feeling doesn’t mean you should automatically call it off. But it can mean saying no to what they’re proposing—exchanging numbers and visiting you in your hotel room—in order to propose something else, like keeping things in-app and meeting first for a drink at a well-known bar. If he’s after you and not something else, he shouldn’t argue.
