Last year while in Ecuador I had a bag stolen with my passport in it. Here are some things you can do to prevent loss of your passport, be prepared for a loss and what to do in case your passport is lost or stolen.
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I grew up in scouting so try to "be prepared" per the motto. Here are a few things that I did (and some that I should have done) that made me fairly prepared.
- Buy and use a hidden wallet capable of carrying your passport under your clothing. Or modify some clothing to carry and keep your passport hidden.
- Scan your passport and relevant visa pages and upload to a secure online storage site that you can access from any online computer. I used Google docs to store both pdf and jpg versions.
- Email yourself information like your passport number (some internet cafes have terribly slow connections and may not be able to upload a scan of your passport) and the phone numbers on the backs of any credit cards you travel with in case you need to cancel them.
- Keep a photo copy of your passport and relevant visas in a different bag than your original.
- Give a copy to someone that will be home and accessible that can fax you a copy if necessary.
- Read about the scams and dangers in the area you are going. There are forums on Trip Advisor with some excellent information. WikiTravel often has warnings about the specific countries or cities you may be visiting.
- Carry a few extra passport sized photos in different bags.
- Know where the embassies are located in the country you're in. It might even be worth noting their hours of operation.
- Take photos of all of the things you are bringing with you. (See my documentation.) Save these online where you can retrieve them. Have receipts for anything you might want to file a claim for.
- Consider travel insurance. Pay close attention to all of the details of the policy. Also ask your homeowner insurance provider if your policy would cover theft while on a trip. (Mine did - but my deductible was $1,000 and the value was about $1,060!)
- Request a replacement debit card from your bank but do not activate it. Keep it apart from your current card so you still have fairly easy access to cash just by calling and activating your new card when you cancel the other one.
- For $10, many cellular carriers will give you a SIM card. You can activate it with them over the phone when you have a replacement phone if yours is stolen. I don't usually use my cell phone while on foreign trips but I rely on it once back in the US. Since I usually have to overnight in Seattle on my return it is handy to have once back in the country.
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Last month two of my clients (Marianne Lee and Harry Fok, from Toronto, Canada) were robbed of their belongings, passports, cameras, money, accessories, etc.. she wanted me to pay for that but I only gave him the service of the tour. I have a tour operator called Go Panama! and all I could do was not to charge for the tour and help her translating her report and sent her to the police station. She thought I was an insurance agency! if you go on a trip please do not blame the travel agent or try to make them pay for your lost items. It is not even proof that she had that in her bag... great tip to take a picture and save all receipts.
The sad thing is that she wrote a review in tripadvisor saying that I didn't help her and didn't responde for her belongings...this was in Panama, at theNational Park: Chagres where natives provide a tour into their village (Embera), this 2 bandits came from the forest....how can I responde for something like that?
They had to renew their passports, almost 200.00 each!
Thanks for reading,
Natassha
Go Panama!
Excellent 'ible you wrote, Thanks!
<Q>Some people are uncomfortable putting their real name online, posting their email address anywhere, or giving out their address. Obviously this suggestion won't work for those people. But it worked great for me. </Q>
I don't doubt it works great for you, it is a good idea, except it will also work out great for the lads in Lagos, Nigeria, too! You know, those 419 scammers, in fact more generally, any scammer / hacker the world over.
Just note these things about the internet-
-The internet is, of course, on all the time!
-Sites (incl Google Docs) are being poked at by hackers for vulnerabilities all the time!
-There are huge online communities and black markets peddling CC numbers, hacking techniques and findings, hacking services, Zombie botnets, VXers, the world over, all relatively untouchable.
-Chances are that Google and everywhere else are being slowly punched away at 24 / 7 / 365 for random account access just for whatever goodies might be within. Its pretty much nearly free to set up and do, its weird to think it, but they'd be mad not to do it for the riches they could pull in!
Time is on their side and its why you keep hearing about compromised personal information from sites that store it all the time.
Its not just the criminals either, its opressive governments, just look in the news at the efforts of China punching away at (hacking) Google for quite some time now!
And if you think nothing can be done with a pic of your Passport stored online, think again. Ever had a loan taken out under your name? Online banking makes it possible, esp with the info you propose people put online!
You ever use a debit card in a shop? Of course you have, some companies are very lax when it comes to data retention and storage of your personal details - I had my debit card cancelled once, the bank only told me it was because the card # was found to have been in posession by criminals, I think it was to do with the highly publicised T K Maxx (TJ Maxx) million plus credit card rip off - I had used my card in there a few months prior to my card being cancelled, but I couldn't be sure it was this.
TK Maxx are only at the pinnacle of the problem because they had a vast amount of CC#s stolen from their computer systems, across the internet. Its the biggest amount of numbers stolen to date. It is literally happening all the time, and if you don't follow the IT news, you wont see it. Some people I speak to even believe the situ is getting better, far from it because scammers are actually making real money from it, its a growing 'profession'.
I work in IT, I keep up to speed on the real issues with internet security. I would NEVER store photographs of my Passport, store credit/debit card numbers, anything like that online ever and I would recommend to anybody that they dont do it. The more people do it, the better a reason for scammers / hackers to poke away at sites like Google Docs with more intensity.
Think I'm being paranoid, check it out for yourself - just take a look at www.theregister.co.uk homepage right now, look at the internet and mobile security stories right now. Theres something on their about it every day, so it doesn't matter when you look!
Heres one recently posted one I just found - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/12/bank_server_breached/
You would think banks would put the investment into making sure things like this dont happen!
Sorry for being all negative, but I'm afraid its all factual. I'm sure other ways of protecting yourself if your docs are stolen when travelling would be preferable, maybe keeping such docs on your password protected smartphone, but I don' t know how much more secure this would be than Google Docs.
Speaking of stuff like this, has anybody seen scammy type adverts pop up on their system, like - "You're computer is vulnerable, click here to scan for viruses"? I'm talking about on the Instructables site! I haven't seen it recently though I'd hope the admins have cleared it up by now.
Have a nice one!
I suppose you could upload these things to Google Docs or cloud file-store sites, but PGP it up first (encrypt it).
Does Google Docs allow you to upload encrypted files?
Note - MS Office password protected files are NOT enough! ;-)
As I said, the danger comes in your data being 'exposed' to possible theft over the internet for long periods of time, possibly between travelling (I don' t travel very often myself, maybe once a year at best).
Am I right in saying that many nations password validity period is ten years? It is in the UK.
In New Zealand it used to be every 10 years (every 5 years if you were a child, but the second application in that time was free). Now it is 5 yearly for everyone and the price increased from NZ$80 to NZ$150. A good money spinner for the govt.
WWW.TRAVEL.STATE.GOV
It's the State Department/ Consular Affairs website (the guys that run all the legal officialness of U.S. Passports). There is a lot of info (all of the legally necessary info I would assume) about getting or replacing U.S. Passports and finding embassies, and a lot of other things.
I'm sorry I don't know where to direct anyone outside of U.S. for their info, but I would imagine keeping your searches to official government sources will be most productive and keep the scam artists out of your pockets.
Nice instructable. Good to have options for everyone's different comfort levels with various security issues.
It was a mission. I cannot reccomend strongly enough that a paper print out of your documents in another safe-ish spot in your bags is very handy.
I hope that people in trouble get to this instructable if they google it from somewhere back of beyond. Thankfully, I had a partner who hadn't lost their passport with me when I lost mine. The feeling of being without it is hard to describe but very difficult to work through when you're in the midst of sorting out how to get through all the admin and work constructively with the administrators.
Happy travels to all -- it's worth it!
If you're uncomfortable posting the info to an email address, Google docs, etc., consider using a service like ifile.it. Other upload sites like rapidshare have time limits for files; they're deleted if not accessed within a certain amount of time. ifile.it doesn't delete files and there's no directory anywhere that lists the files they have (that I'm aware of). Save the passport info, cc info, etc. as files in a zipped file (with password, if you're really security conscious) or as a multi page pdf file. Put the link to your files in a safe place because if you lose that you won't access the info.
Cheers,
Here are my suggestions for UK people.
Before travelling go to a photographer and have credit card sized images of the passport main page taken and laminated. Carry them in your wallets and keep one of each passport in your accomodation.
Leave photocopies of passports with a friend or relative. Leave bank phone numbers and credit card company numbers (and card numbers) also in case of wallet loss.
Dont leave your bag with passports cash, credit cards near the front door like I did!!!
Keep a credit card separate from your other valuables. Keep a phone separate.
Check embassy and consulates near your destination(s) and note their phone numbers and opening times.
Do the things that are shown in this 'ible also.
Don't be paranoid - be careful.
Scan all your personal details and put them on the internet?
I thought this was about security??
The way I see it, my information is more secure online than if i carry a photocopy of it in every bag on my trip.
But I'm not overly concerned about identity theft. Heck, my passport is floating around out there somewhere right now.
Passports are fairly useless to other people (except in movies :p).
It's somewhat like your SS#... We're told to keep it under lock and key - but it's super easy (as in $25-$50) to find someone's by running a credit check. This is especially useful (for businesses) when independent contractors don't want to give up their info... There's a lot more than a SSN needed to do anything :p
The nicest feature was an internal zippered pocket where my Canadian passport fit nicely.
Needless to say that vest never left my back in public.
It was also handy for carrying my cash for the day, gum, camera, travel documents, etc...
On the other hand, my wife relied on a passport pouch she wore under her shirt... where only I could get at it. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)