N830MH

Actually, some European airports has scan passports. When I exiting from the country. I always go through passports control. I have no problem for me at all. Every time that I have go through passports control. I arrived CDG and I took shuttle bus from 2M to 2G. I went through passports control. I gave it to him and he scan my passports and I told him that I am going to see my brother. He stamp on my passport. That was it.

Louie_LI

Interesting, thanks. I had never considered that angle.

GUWonder

I've known him for a long time too, and he's bought into the DHS/TSA mindset.

Way more than 29 countries have sometimes queried the SLTD database, but indeed only a small minority of countries have been using the database to check most all passenger manifests and passengers against them. Even when it comes to those countries -- primarily the US, UK, and UAE historically -- that check against the database most of the time, they too have people crossing the country's border on invalid travel docs despite those checks. The MRZ alterations fool airlines and even passport control authorities even when the base doc was in the SLTD database.

I don't really care about the identities of the other stranger-passengers on my flights, as I'd rather have resources used for searching for and interdicting contraband WEIs. I've been on flights with passengers with invalid travel docs and it's been no skin off my back except for when database search hits resulted in a hold up after the plane doors were opened/re-opened because the local or other authorities wanted to grab the persons flagged by database searches.

todd-r

In the case of the MH flight, I have to wonder if Luigi and Christian, really looked like a typical Luigi or Christian (the first names in the passports used by the two Iranian gentlemen). One would not need to check any type of list to venture a second guess if the travel doc was legit or fake.

RadioGirl

What does a "typical" Luigi or Christian look like? And why should a genuine Luigi who doesn't fit your standard of "typical" be subject to suspicion every time he travels?

In 2014, give the global movement and mixing of people from all ethnic backgrounds, it is not at all unlikely that someone who doesn't "look" like a "typical" Italian could have a name like Luigi.

I have a friend with a Gaelic first name and extremely common English surname (for example, "Lachlan Jones"); his paternal grandfather was English but his other three grandparents were ethnically Chinese. He certainly doesn't look like a "typical" Lachlan or a "typical" Jones.

cdn1

Can you imagine is every check-in around the world involved multiple checks of each and every passport and/or ID with all these so-called lists and databases? You'd have to be at the airport a day early.

Secondly, most immigration checks are sufficient these days. In most countries that are not G-8, money rules. Have enough of it and you can bribe officials. When their salaries are not enough to cover living expenses, what do u expect? I'm talking more on the side of letting someone slip using fake/stolen/borrowed ppts, etc, nobody would allow that for terrorism.

There will always be people abusing systems no matter where they are. Sometimes they get through, mostly they get caught.

I doubt if every country wants Interpol to be specialist of their passsport systems/security/procedures. Interpol does not have manpower for that much workload. Can you imagine what chaos airports would be if everything had to be checked against extensive lists.

Pesky Monkey

Stolen passports don't bring down planes. The 9/11 hijackers had no problems with their actual passports. It's a non-issue as far as airline safetly.

duniawala

Interesting. That's akin to saying guns don't kill people. How does one know the intent of the traveler. He/she could be a suicide bomber. Now that they are going to allow cell phone usage on planes, it would easy enough to set off a bomb in checked luggage.

The world we live in today is getting scarier and scarier every day.

GUWonder

With a suicide bomber, it's the bomb -- not the passport -- that kills, if anything does.

With a shooter, it's the gun's bullets -- not the real or fake ID on the shooter -- that kills, if anything does.

To stop a bomb in checked luggage, detecting and interdicting contraband WEIs is sufficient and doesn't require detecting and interdicting fraudulent use of real/forged/fake ID, be those IDs passports or otherwise. The expenditure of resources on ID checking can be reallocated and used to detect and interdict contraband WEIs from getting on planes and would do more to spare us in-flight bombings than detecting and interdicting all fraudulent/forged/fake IDs used by passengers.

Intent doesn't change a thing in terms of what has the power to kill and what doesn't have the power to kill. No bomb, no bomber.

The world is actually a safer place today than it has been in most of human history, but paranoia about identity is not the reason for that.

WillCAD

Yeah, because the rules against cell phone usage on flights have been protecting us against bombers for decades! Now, they're gonna let everyone use phones on flights, why, ANYONE could set off a bomb!