Originally Posted by
CatchFlightsNotFeelings
the privacy issues surrounding it worry me. In reality, what can some phone shop in Paris really do with my passport if I didn’t pay a bill? It’d be like 100 euros of debt MAX. I doubt consular agencies would care to get involved, and reporting me to some collections agency would result in a nearly impossible debt to enforce and certainly not be something that could withstand a credit report appeal.
I'm guessing it is a security thing rather than a financial thing. If you use your SIM card in phone to trigger a bomb they'd have some place to start looking. That whole "burner phone" thing...