Loading ...Can a simple airline stub, plucked out of a bin near Heathrow lead to a breach of security and possible identity theft? The answer might surprise you.
The traveler’s name was on the discarded British Airways boarding-pass stub. Its just a small section of the pass that displays your name and seat number. Very similar to the stub you probably throw away as soon as you leave your flight.
It said the traveler had flown from Brussels to London on March 15 at 7.10am on BA flight 389 in seat 03C. It said the man was “Gold” standard passenger and gave his frequent-flyer number. I picked up the stub, mindful of a report by a computer security expert two months earlier, and put it in my pocket.
If the expert was right, this stub would give access to the travelers personal information, including his passport number, date of birth and nationality. It would provide the building blocks for stealing his identity, possibly ruining his future travel plans – and allowing his passport to be stolen.
We logged on to the BA website, bought a ticket in the travelers name and entered the frequent flyer number on his boarding pass stub, without typing in a password. We were given full access to all his personal details – including his passport number, the date it expired, his nationality (he is Dutch, living in the UK) and his date of birth. The system even allowed us to change the information.
Using this information and surfing publicly available databases available on the internet, we were able – within 15 minutes – to find out where the traveler lived, who lived there with him, where he worked, which universities he had attended and even how much his house was worth when he bought it two years ago.
The CAPPS program was scraped, but the security idea still remains and will be introduced in new forms such as the new ID Cards expected to be implemented by the UK in 2008 for travel into the US.
The last word on the issue should go to Mark Broer, the traveler whose boarding pass stub started off this virtual paper chase and security experiment. He is 41 and is a successful executive with a pharmaceutical recruitment company. When told what had been done with his boarding pass stubb, he was appalled.
www.britishairways.com
