You might have seen in the news today an article about a Canadian man who used his iPad to gain entry to the USA after leaving his passport back at home which was two hours away from the border. In a nutshell, he was able to cross the border by providing a digital copy of his passport on his iPad to the border officer and, after some deliberation, he was allowed into the USA as an exception. Furthermore, he was allowed to cross back into Canada later that day using the same digital copy of his passport.
This does raise a couple of things to consider. Firstly, why are legal documents such as passports still in paper form? Almost everything else is in digital form and you can print out a digital document with relative ease (so long as it is in a printer-friendly format). With the looming advent of NFC (Near Field Communication) devices it seems that legal documentation and identification is falling behind the times just like many of the laws in place to protect institutions that have moved from non-digital media to digital media. This really is an area that needs to catch up but half the problem is that our politicians can’t grasp the concept without dreaming up stuff like the “Australia Card”.
The other thing to consider on a personal front is how you “backup” your legal documents. While it may not have immediate usefulness you may find it handy if you find yourself without those documents at some point (either due to distance or having lost them). This is where cloud storage can come in handy (so long as your documents are encrypted of course). It could help you out if you lose your passport or have it stolen while overseas.
Perhaps there’s some food for thought there for backing up paper-based information.
Follow Us!