Passport readers
Today, whether for business or pleasure, people are constantly looking for new places to explore. Though
it’s exciting to discover new locales, traveling isn't without its risks. Being an outsider in a new place
attracts all kinds of attention. Negative attention puts travelers at risk of being targeted for theft.
With this in mind, passport readers are helping to cut down on passport theft related crimes.
By confirming the authenticity of passports with technological accuracy, passport readers are changing the
way people travel. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, passport readers scan and verify
travel documents in no time. What used to take ten minutes now takes less than ten seconds. Before passport
readers, people relied on their own eyes to check passport authenticity. There is no 100% accurate way of
doing this the human eye can easily miss the differences between a real and a fake passport. It also
takes time to type a person's passport information into a computer system. With a slow connection, it
could take awhile to determine if the document is real or counterfeit. Why wait when passport readers
can do the job in less time and with complete accuracy?
Take, for example, the currency exchange system. The first thing a traveler must do when landing in a new
country is cash their traveler’s checks and exchange their money for the national currency. No matter if
the exchange is from Dollars to Baht, from Euros to Yen, the first step of the currency exchange is the
passport check. With passport readers, this is a very easy step. By simply swiping the passport through
the reader, the exchange operator can know within seconds whether the document is real or not. If the
document is counterfeit, the operator will know not to cash their checks or exchange this person's
currency. They can even alert local authorities to the forged documents.
What if, however, the situation was more serious? Picture a traveler who realizes that his traveling documents
have just been stolen. He immediately alerts his embassy, but he forgets to cancel his traveler's checks.
With the old system, the thief could have strolled into a currency exchange office, merely showed the
stolen passport, and exchanged thousands in travelers checks. passport readers can prevent this from
happening. When the operator scans the passport, the information can be compared with international
databases and crosschecked against blacklists. This network will identify the passport as stolen
property, and the thief will be apprehended. By preventing the thief from stealing even more from
his victim, this method also protects the traveler's assets from potential theft.
Passport readers can prevent crime. Using readers in currency exchange bureaus can help put an end to traveler
and identity theft and ensure a safer environment for all travelers.
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