T R AV E L
Why you should never
upload a photo of your
boarding pass to
Facebook
P
osting a picture of a boarding pass to Facebook
can seem smug, especially when no one else
is going on holiday – but it could come back
to bite you in a completely different way. Brian
Krebs, an author and blogger specialising in investigative stories on cybercrime and computer security, explained just how much information an airplane boarding
pass contains in its barcode. He wrote about a reader of
his blog, KrebsOnSecurity, who became curious about
the information he could glean from a friend’s boarding
pass uploaded to Facebook. After taking a screenshot
of the Lufthansa flight boarding pass, he quickly found
a website “that could decode the data and instantly had
lots of info about his trip”. The information included the
passenger’s name, frequent flyer number and other
“personally identifiable information”. The reader, known
as Cory, was able to obtain the “record key” for the Lufthansa flight the passenger was taking that day. The
reader continues to the airline’s website and used the
passenger’s last name, which was encoded in the bar-
code, and the record key enabled him “to access his
entire account”. “Not only could I see this one flight, but
I could see ANY future flights that were booked to his
frequent flyer number from the Star Alliance,” said Cory.
Mr Krebs said the access granted by Lufthansa also allowed Cory to view “all future flights tied to that frequent
flyer account”, change seats for the ticketed passenger,
and even cancel any future flights. Travel news blog The
Winglet suggests blurring out sensitive information if you
must upload a photo of your boarding pass to social media. This includes the airline ticket number, record locator and barcode, as well as “any other identifiable information”. Once your flight is over and you no longer have
a need for the boarding pass, Mr Krebs suggests putting
it in the shredder rather than simply throwing it away as
the data stored in it can still be accessed. More information on airplane boarding passes and barcode standards
can be found in this document by the International Air
Transport Association (IATA).
44 | BOOM