What’s in a Boarding Pass Barcode?

<p><pre><code> Interested in learning what’s in your boarding pass barcode? Take a picture of the barcode with your phone, and upload it to this site. </code></pre> Woah! We are talking about private information being easily accessed from our boarding passes and there is a passage on uploading it to some site online. Wouldn&#x27;t that be ill-advised.

The barcode is PDF417 and there are phone apps that scan and convert it to text (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pdf417.mobi&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pdf417.mobi&#x2F;</a>) - in case you do not want to send this to some website. I played with it, decoding my own boarding passes, but did not find anything that was not already printed on the pass. Granted there was a lot of abbreviated gibberish which may have been something sensitive.

This barcode is normally used as input to ACP (IBM Airline Control Program, also called TPF or z&#x2F;TPF) in plaintext to a TCP&#x2F;IP TN3270-based terminal emulator running under Windows (with or without any SSH encryption). But the barcode text is visible to anyone facing the terminal. At least it&#x27;s how it happened in all my latest flights.

It&#x27;s worth noting that everything mentioned in the article except the full frequent flyer number is also printed in ASCII on the boarding pass.

I had tried that before using Mathematica instead of a website and I was also surprised to see the data in the barcode is not really signed in any way. IIRC it was a European low cost like Ryan air, and I thought it was scary that I could have generated the same exact bar code just by knowing my name and the flight.<p>Of course there is an extra step of validation, because the airline has the passenger list, so you can&#x27;t just add yourself to a flight.

Thats like googling your social security number to see if any website is using it. I&#x27;ve done this with range-search however.

Since the article doesn&#x27;t actually say - the barcode is PDF417.

Is this the reason why you need to scan your boarding-card if you buy something in the airport? Is it regulation or are these companies data-mining?<p>Edit: Apparently it has something to do with VAT: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.telegraph.co.uk&#x2F;travel&#x2F;travelnews&#x2F;11794109&#x2F;The-real-reason-airport-shops-want-to-see-your-boarding-pass.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.telegraph.co.uk&#x2F;travel&#x2F;travelnews&#x2F;11794109&#x2F;The-re...</a>

This just reinforced why I use smartphone boarding passes.

So upon the actual boarding process, is the actual flight reservation checked with the name or is it susceptible to fraud?<p>I can see how fraud can be prevented with this schema, but I wonder if it&#x27;s implemented.

That&#x27;s a little irresponsible on the part of airlines.