10 REASONS FOR NOT POSTING A BOARDING PASS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
We are living in times where security can be high jacked, and breaches can be easily open, stealing sensitive information from an individual. What some people do not know is that by sharing your boarding pass with the world, you are giving that information for anyone to take. To make you aware of the dangers, this straightforward and innocent action of just taking a picture of your boarding pass might lead to identity theft, duplicate credit cards, account numbers were stolen and even passwords, just to mention a couple.
Stealing data or personal information is easy nowadays thanks to technology. To show you a little bit of what I am saying a took random pictures from different users, that I might not mention just to protect their identity, to show you to what I am referring.
We are very much used to take selfies or pictures of anything and everything and post them on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.
To make everyone aware of the dangers of sharing personal information which every can have access to, I made a list of ten reasons why you should NEVER post your boarding pass on any social media:
- Airline company — In your boarding pass, it shows which airline did you chose to make your trip.
2. Full name — Your complete name is written there, which anyone can type it on Facebook or any portal and see your profile to know what you look like.
3. Flight number — The exact flight that you are taking it is shown on your ticket and in every panel of the airport.
4. Where are you going and when — You can clearly see at what time is your flight taking off and what is your destination.
5. Seat number — The number of your seat is there, so everyone knows that Mr. X is seating in row 12A.
Until here, everything is obvious, but not really. It gets trickier, and more dangerous to the point that it is scary just to think about how easy can be to know the personal information of somebody. At this point and as you look further down data gets easier to steal.
6. Booking reference — It provides your personal reference, yes, the one that they ask you along with your destination to enter your booking details on the airline web page.
7. Ticket number — On the internet, it asks you about either one to enter your profile, booking reference or ticket number. By having this and your full name is enough to buy things, upgrades, cancel or rebooking.
8. Frequent flyer program — Your frequent flyer program number is on your boarding pass as well.
9. Bags — How many checked bags did you leave at the counter? Yes, is there too!
However, the worst of all is number ten!
10. Bar Code — It can be easily screenshotted and used it. That bar code has all the information that your ticket has, which makes it even more dangerous that having anything written on it.
“It takes less than 10 seconds to create a boarding pass.”
As you can see, it can be easy to steal an identity, your credit card number if you have it in your frequent flyer account, your home address and any other personal details that you might have.
First, be extra careful when posting and if you want to do it anyway, try to avoid disclosing sensitive information by making it blurry from your picture; although my advice is NOT to post any Boarding Pass at all!
“You might avoid many problems in the future and to be honest, it is better to be safe than sorry, right? You do not leave the door open from your house, or the keys from your car on the door nor you disclose information about your life with strangers so why would you post a picture sharing all this information in social media?” @thenewcityoflights
Hopefully, after reading this article, you might change this habit and just avoid posting boarding passes at all. The same happens with bag tags so don’t post them either! Many people have suffered from this identity thefts and stolen information, so don’t give them a chance to take yours.
Thank you for reading us!
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