Just put a staple through my biometric US passport
#1
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Join Date: Jan 2013
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Just put a staple through my biometric US passport
Got a tourist trip to Vietnam and Cambodia coming up, so I used the slick Cambodian e-visa service to download and print my visa. Their recommendation is to staple one copy into your passport, so I dutifully did so. It's a bit awkward to get a full-size stapler in there, so I had to fumble with it ... and I ended up putting a staple through not only the page I was trying to affix it to, but also the back cover.
I fished it out and finally got the damn visa stapled to its own blank page, but my question is this: did I damage or ruin the passport's biometric chip in the process? If you open the back cover and look at the interior, the staple holes are in the far lower-right corner, inside the barcode region. Where exactly are the electronics on a US biometric passport?
It's only 18 months old -- and already has our visas in it -- so I'm praying it's not irreparably damaged. Thanks for any advice.
I fished it out and finally got the damn visa stapled to its own blank page, but my question is this: did I damage or ruin the passport's biometric chip in the process? If you open the back cover and look at the interior, the staple holes are in the far lower-right corner, inside the barcode region. Where exactly are the electronics on a US biometric passport?
It's only 18 months old -- and already has our visas in it -- so I'm praying it's not irreparably damaged. Thanks for any advice.
#4
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Thanks for the replies. I'm relieved.
As for the visa, apparently a glue stick is a big no-no: other travelers indicate that the immigration desk typically removes the visa on departure and stamps the passport.
As for the visa, apparently a glue stick is a big no-no: other travelers indicate that the immigration desk typically removes the visa on departure and stamps the passport.
#5
Join Date: Nov 2012
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Yeah a friend of mine put his in a microwave to fry the chip. Instead his passport caught on fire.
#6
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If you want to be really sure you can always try to read the chip with a nfc enabled mobile phone using an app like NFC passport reader (or any other ncf app).
#7
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