Bare Minimum action steps to mitigate Country Specific Violations of privacy & personal security?

[lepras]

For travel

Phone/laptop for overseas trip

Hi. I have an overseas holiday coming up and (obviously) I don’t want to travel with my primary devices. My main concern is being randomly selected to have my devices searched on entry to my destination country (Canada) and on return to my home country (Australia). Although I’ve done this trip many times before and never had an issue, I have developed a concern for privacy since my last trip and want to take more care in future. And neither of these countries have a great reputation for being r…

Does taking steps to protect my privacy arouse suspicion?

It was on my mind to ask this exact question. With an addition: Do privacy measures arouse suspicion to state security in the processing of visas and monitoring of who comes in and out of borders. I assume at least the US and China do an (automated) online background check for new visa applicants, and I suspect being unable to find data could raise a flag. The flag could be enough to trigger a much more heavy and personalised analysis of the applicant, and could result in a declined application …