Friends and I are considering some travelling around the world, including perhaps a trip to China. There is much negative press on the state of digital privacy in China, but what exactly should I pay attention to if I do visit? If I am your typical privacy enthusiast with a GrapheneOS phone and Linux laptop, how might I prepare for the trip privacy-wise? I’d also love to hear any firsthand experience as to which concerns are myths and which ones are real.
If you expect them to ask you to unlock your phone for inspection, or will let them take it out of your sight even when locked, take it in with a wiped but not bare profile, then factory reset it and restore from backup once you’re through customs. Completely reflashing it would be even better, but probably not feasible unless you’re also bringing a laptop.
Edit: oh you have a laptop, in that case go nuts. But the same treatment is possible for a laptop: they might ask you to power it on, unlock it for inspection, or let them take it out of your sight for a short time. Maybe set up a small temporary Windows partition with a few apps and games and innocent docs and pictures. And encrypt the Linux partition, if you haven’t already.