HOUSTON – We are just a few days away from the busiest travel days of the year at Houston airports. Traveling can be more convenient these days with digital boarding passes, but with convenience comes a warning about your personal information.
You need a boarding pass to get past security and get on that plane to grandma's house. Whether you have a traditional paper one or you're using your smartphone, that boarding pass is valuable to thieves.
"The barcodes on airplane boarding passes might not look like much, but they actually contain a lot of embedded personal information," NBC senior tech editor Julianne Pepitone said.
It's information that can be easily hacked, according to a blog by security expert Brian Krebs.
"Someone could theoretically get access to a plane ticket if it was left behind somewhere, someone dropped their physical ticket," Pepitone said.
Posting a photo of your boarding pass to social media can also be risky. Thousands of people use #boardingpass in posts about their trips.
But anyone who has access to that image can go to a simple barcode reader website and scan it.
"They could find out someone's name, their frequent flyer number and the record locator for that flight," Pepitone said.
They could also use information to log in to your airline account, change seats or change future travel plans. Those barcodes can also be tied back to your phone number.
"It's a sobering reminder that you want to be really careful with your plane ticket, don't leave it behind, and you definitely don't want to upload a photo of your plane ticket to Facebook or Instagram," Pepitone said.
Don't leave a paper boarding pass behind on the plane. Tear it up or take it with you.