Scary.
It’s very likely that you’ve seen a friend sharing a holiday photo in a bid to make you green with envy. Granted, it usually works because we would all love to be sipping on a pint in the departure lounge before jetting off to some exotic location but Steve Hu from iflyflat.com.au has proven why it’s a terrible idea to disclose any of the the flight details that are shared on your boarding card.
Using just the details from a boarding card, Steve logged onto the website of Delta Airlines and was able to ascertain all of the following;
- The passenger’s personal details, including name
- The passenger’s itinerary; where they were going to be travelling and when
- Seat number
- Frequent flier detals
- Break down of the fare paid
- The date the ticket was purchased
- Last four digits of the bank card used
Even if the majority of the details on the boarding card are hidden from view, it’s still incredibly precarious to display the barcode of your boarding pass.
Steve explains: “The barcode contains basically all the information on the boarding pass, stored in a specially readable format.You may think that airport computers are the only devices that can read this, but the truth is, anyone can read a barcode. There are dozens of online barcode readers that provide information based on a photo you upload.
In this case, I was able to retrieve all the passenger’s details without seeing the rest of the boarding card.The text provided full name, flight number, route, booking reference, ticket number, frequent flyer number and more. Accessing all this information is a lot easier than you may have thought, and there is a great risk associated with publishing uncensored images of boarding passes.
Here’s some more information about passport security.
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