A Dangerous Loophole in Airport Security
If Slate could discover it, the terrorists will too.
By Andy Bowers
A home-printed boarding pass is generally checked only twice at the airport:
1) Right before you go through security, a security guard checks your boarding pass against your government-issued ID, making sure the names match. This check does not include a scan of the barcode, in part because the same security checkpoints process passengers for multiple airlines with different computer systems.
2) Once you get to your boarding gate, the barcode on the printed pass is finally scanned just before you enter the Jetway. However, as the boarding agents remind you over and over, you no longer need to show your ID at the gate. The agents cheerily tell them to put their IDs awaythey're no longer necessary.
At stop 1), the name on a home-printed boarding pass is checked against an ID, but not against the name stored in the airline's computer. At stop 2), the name on the printed pass is checked against the name in the computer, but not against an ID.
