iPad Accepted in Lieu of Passport

A man entering the U.S. from Canada was able to cross the border without his passport by presenting a scan of it on his iPad. And no one even bothered to yell "Photoshop!"
Martin Reisch said Tuesday a slightly annoyed U.S. border officer let him cross into the United States from Quebec after he presented a scanned copy of his passport on his Apple iPad. Reisch was a half hour from the border when he decided to try to gain entry rather than turn back and make a two-hour trek back home to Montreal to fetch his passport.

He told the officer he was heading to the U.S. to drop off Christmas gifts for his friend's kids. He said that true story, the scanned passport and his driver's license helped him get through last week.

He said the officer seemed mildly annoyed when he handed him the iPad.

"I thought I'd at least give it a try," Reisch said. "He took the iPad into the little border hut. He was in there a good five, six minutes. It seemed like an eternity. When he came back he took a good long pause before wishing me a Merry Christmas."

Reisch was able to re-enter Canada on his way home using the same method. Link -via Fark

(Image credit: Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Update: U.S. Customs denies it happened. Link

I'm not that surprised... Post 9/11, I lost my passport while traveling in Europe, but always carry a scanned copy of the picture page in my luggage. I got back into the US using only this scanned paper copy ( + my driver's license).
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I am guessing it worked on the way back to Canada because I believe you don't need a passport to get into Canada from the US unless you are flying...

Either way, I am hoping they just took pity on the guy because it was Christmas... feel bad for any subsequent people who think to do this for sh!ts and giggles...
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We're told border control staff are really sharp, but in reality it seems you could fool them with a photoshopped image of a passport. It's to be hoped that no potential terrorists have read this story.
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This story made me so angry yesterday.

Here's a border guard taking pity on the guy at Christmas to do the right thing, make a judgement call and let him pass and what does he do?

He shoots his mouth off to the world because getting his face on the internet is more important than protecting the guy who did him a favour from getting into trouble/losing his job.

I hope that next time they 'find' crack in his beard and terrorist pornography on his ipad and ship him off to Guantanamo.
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