What’s in a Boarding Pass Barcode? A Lot...

Folks, the information on that barcode is nothing more than same the plain text information found elsewhere on the boarding pass. The only reason for the barcode is that scanners are much faster reading barcodes than reading plain text using Optical character recognition (OCR)
That information on these documents will not lead anyone to your private information anywhere. There are still other factors you need in order to steal someone's identity or hijack your frequent flyer account, unless you are careless enough to have a simple password for your account; in which case, the barcode info is the least of your problems. It is a good idea to destroy the boarding pass but not only because of the barcode.

Saw a picture of a naked lady in mine once.

Should I shred my iPhone then?

Pretty sure something like this has been squawked before... Pretty much anything interesting encoded in the barcode is also printed in plain text

I wave mine over a cigarette lighter, since they are thermal printed they go utterly black.

Definitely shred them.. .They have lots of data on them...

This is why I always take all my boarding passes (including duplicates) home and shred them.

Just shred your boarding pass. End of story!

I travel on the Government dime, so I keep the boarding passes for submission to the Travel office. Fail to do so (or destroy them) & you won't get reimbursed.

Speaking as an IT security professional, Brian Krebs is a well-respected journalist who specializes in IT security. If you think the information encoded in a boarding pass bar code is public and harmless, it's because you don't know how to think like a bad guy. Most white hat types don't, so don't feel too bad. OTOH, you should read the article.

Wow, never thought about that. That makes a lot of sense though.

Wow thanks never thought of that

What a great thing I read today , thank the fact I always keep my boarding pass till my points arrive in my account and always burn my used personal flight papers within one year .
But I do thank you for the above info

Always do that

Even if you print the boarding pass on your own PC at home the code is still the same with the info , be very cool and trash your B/pass for you own safety .
HAPPY FLYING to all you PAX

Thanks a lot for the information and by now will act accordingly.
regards,
gumansingh

Good ole BS from a "journalist" that has too much idlr time on his hands.

As an IT security guy too, always shred any document that has your name or any other personal information on it, not just boarding passes. on a trip and no shredder handy? Tear it into small pieces and flush it.

(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

Security Expert: Boarding Passes Reveal Way Too Much

Airline boarding passes display a lot more information than just your flight and seat number, according to a security researcher who recommends shredding old ones—and he says posting photos of boarding passes online is a bad idea.

http://www.newser.com/story/214184/security-expert-boarding-passes-reveal-way-too-much.html