Business Travel Tips

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says in its blog it has been working for a few months on a system for checking the authenticity of the boarding passes.

“….a team of people at TSA went to work on it. They’re working very closely with our airline partners to incorporate a strong digital signature into the barcode on every boarding pass.
The technique we’ve selected allows existing 2D barcode scanners to read the basic flight information, but scanners equipped with the appropriate security keys can authenticate the information and determine if the name, date, flight number or any other information has been changed. It’s simple but very effective. The net result will be a boarding pass that is extremely resistant to tampering or forgery…..”

Thanks to a cooperation with some airlines, TSA has launched eight test sites where passengers can receive boarding passes on their mobile phones or PDAs. (Here is a list of airports and airlines that are involved in the project).
These mobile boarding passes have digital signatures embedded in the barcodes. Officers who do the document checking are equipped with handheld barcode scanners and can confirm the authenticity of the boarding pass instantly.