When you arrive at the airport, proceed to the check-in area to collect your bags and present your travel documents through security. When you get to the front of the line, your passport, airline ticket and boarding pass are examined. The person in charge scans this document to validate your identity and make sure that you are indeed the owner. This card contains a certain amount of private information about you. Naturally, you are asked to take care of it very carefully so as not to lose it so that it can be presented when boarding the plane, otherwise you will be denied access. But many passengers tend to slip it into the back pocket of their seat and forget about it. Worse still, the new trend for some passengers is to take a photo to share on Facebook or Instagram. Big mistake ! Find out why you need to banish all these bad habits.
Boarding pass – Source: spm
What is in the barcode of a boarding pass? And why should you destroy it?
As you know, the boarding pass is an official document that the airline provides to passengers during check-in (or is printed directly via the Internet) and that authorizes the person to board the aircraft for the flight specified in the document. . Whether in paper or electronic format, this card is equipped with a bar code with all the private information of the passenger and other data related to the company, the flight, as well as the cities of departure and arrival.
Here are 3 reasons why it is highly recommended to throw away your boarding pass when you land the plane:
Reason #1
The barcode contains your personal data: Surname/First name/Address/Phone number… According to experts, you should know that the travel industry is in the crosshairs of cybercrime. Therefore, your boarding pass is a real mine of information for hackers who can easily hack you if they get access to it. Prudence is therefore the mother of safety!
Reason #2
If you fly frequently with the same airline, your frequent flyer account linked to your airline can be seriously compromised. Not to mention that your credit card is stored there. In the eyes of cybercriminals, the value of loyalty points is priceless. Thanks to your boarding pass, they can easily target you and steal your accumulated points for years. A real hit for all frequent flyers!
Reason #3
Your Frequent Flyer Number and Passenger Name Record Locator Number (PRN) are two key pieces of information to access your itinerary. With a simple barcode, you can give criminals quick access to your personal information and bank details. Therefore, they can buy tickets and collect any additional information from your account. To avoid losing your boarding pass and taking all these risks, it is best to destroy it as soon as possible.
Passport with papers – Source: spm
Why you should never post your boarding pass on social media
As they say: “to live happily, live hidden”. Unfortunately, with the age of social media, it’s hard to go unnoticed. The concept of “have you seen me” is back to its glory days! Nowadays, Internet users publish almost anything on the networks. Discretion has been forgotten: we reveal the dishes we eat, the clothes we wear, the places we go, the destinations we visit… and even boarding passes! On Instagram in particular, there is even a hashtag (#boardingpass) that has more than 100,000 photos of passengers unscrupulously displaying their private information on their public account. This greatly facilitates the task of all cyber criminals!
In all naivety and recklessness, many people publicly share their boarding pass code. It doesn’t matter if you hide your first and last name, what really interests the hacker is above all the code. Tell yourself that with a simple app that can scan him (or even a screenshot on Instagram), you can retrieve his full name and all of his personal information.
Unfortunately, boarding passes aren’t the only culprit. Checked baggage tags are also dangerous: the flight’s six-digit reservation code, known to airlines as PNR (Passenger Name Record), is printed on them. This code, of course, is in addition to a very insecure password generated by the airline, which is a gold mine for malicious people. In other words, we strongly recommend that you destroy both your boarding pass and baggage tags as soon as you arrive at your destination.
