Hi everyone, I was interested in the Kansai WIDE Area Pass that you buy online (through JR-WEST ONLINE TRAIN RESERVATION). When you buy it on this website you can pick up Kansai WIDE Area Pass at a vending machine and the machine will scan your passport to check your eligibility, because rail pass user needs to (1) have a foreign passport and (2) be in Japan as a temporary visitor.

When the rail pass user exchanges the pass at the ticket office, the JR staff visually checks to make sure that the rail pass user has a temporary visitor stamp. But according to a Japanese article I read from the Japan Railway Engineers’ Association regarding technical details for the “green” ticket machine with a passport reader, the passport reader at the vending machine checks the MRZ area and the IC chip of the passport. Another article I read from the US Department of State says that the US electronic passport's chip cannot be altered, so I imagine that the chip contains no information regarding the passport holder's visa status in Japan. This makes me believe that the JR West ticket machine passport reader only checks for the passport's nationality, and does not check for the temporary visitor status. Further, I e-mailed JR West regarding the information that is collected from the passport at the time of pass pickup, and the only information that's collected is the passport number and nationality, none of which is shared with third-parties. Without sharing this passport information with the Japanese immigration officials, there is no way that temporary visitor status can be ascertained. Therefore, I believe that even if one is not a temporary visitor in Japan, as long as this person has a non-Japanese passport equipped with an IC chip, then they can get the JR-WEST RAIL PASS from a ticket vending machine.

Do you guys think that this is correct?