1Password introduces Travel Mode

Today 1Password announces the introduction of the new Travel Model. This is a revolutionary mode available to all 1Password paid subscriptions, which allows 1Password user to have selected set of vaults available on their devices. In other words, once this mode is activated, any vault that is not market “safe for travel” will be totally deleted and removed from your devices.

Why the name?

This is related to traveling because with the new travel laws, border officers have the authority to ask you to unlock your devices and any application on those devices. So the whole concept here, if a border officer asks you to unlock your 1Password, your confidential data will remain safe, and nothing will be leaked.

How to enable it?

In order to enable this feature, all you need to do is to create a new vault on 1Password, then login to 1Password.com; from there you can edit the vault and mark it “Safe for Tavel”. This means that once the option Travel mode is activated, this vault will remain on your device, and every other vault — not marked safe — will be totally purged from the device

The smart part here, comes here; only from 1Password.com, you cannot see or know from any other 1Password client that the Travel Mode is activated, and the vault will appear normally like any other vaults.

In order to enable the travel mode, all you need to do is to open “My Profile” on 1Password web application, and from there select “Enable Travel Mode”.

Is it available for self Dropbox & iCloud?

Unfortunately, this is only available to 1Password subscription tiers. Users using Dropbox and iCloud for synchronization will not be able to enjoy that feature. I do not think 1Password will do any efforts in implementing this feature for other sync services. Simply; because it will kill the whole subject, as those services do not have a management console for your vaults, hence, you cannot control which vaults to keep and which to remove from your devices. Otherwise, 1Password desktop clients will need to have the switch to Enable or Disable the mode. So; personally I think that keeping it for 1Password subscription makes more sense.

What about 1Password.com itself?

This is the main concern here, simply; if the border office asks you to unlock 1Password.com. Here comes a very unpleasant situation, because the office will see all your data, and moreover, will get to know you are hiding something.

Conclusion

So how do I see this new feature? In my opinion, it’s a very smart one, from the biggest company in that field, and I truly respect this move. The service was just introduced today, so we need more time to test it. The main drawback is the lack of way to protect 1Password.com backend from any preying eyes.

At the end, I truly thank 1Password for keeping their software top-notch.