What Your Boarding Pass Says About You

Like most people, I don't give a lot of thought to an airline boarding pass after I'm already on the plane. If I'm lucky, it goes in my bag or my pocket so I can make sure I got my frequent flyer miles. If not, it gets crammed into the seat-back pocket. After reading this article on the Guardian website, they'll be going into the shredder.

Using a random boarding pass found in Heathrow Airport, the writer sees what he can find out about the traveler. Starting with only his name and frequent flyer number, he's eventually got access to his address, passport number, date of birth, college background, job information, and how much his house cost. All in about 15 minutes of surfing the Internet.

This is scary, scary stuff, folks. The good news: The hole revolved around a flaw with the design of the British Airways web site, and that hole has been patched. But considering there are hundreds of airlines in the world, and you might have frequent flyer accounts with a dozen of them, can you really be certain your data is safe?

The story is long and detailed (and stretches back to the Clinton era in discussing the origins of various "Secure Flight" programs, which have directly led to the state we're in). But it's definitely interesting reading for a Friday afternoon. You'll never abandon an old boarding pass again.