Canadian Man Uses iPad to Enter US

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Taking a trip to another country? Did you make sure to pack an iPad but not your passport? Good thing your hobby is to scan legal documents just for funsies! You can sleep peacefully tonight America knowing our Canadian borders are secure. :rolleyes:

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.
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Hopefully the Canadians are nice to him when he tries to get back in...
 
well, i'm not sure why this is seen as a bad thing. i just recently got my passport renewed and traveled out of the country. The US passport office tells travelers to either have paper photocopies of your documents or to have digital scans in your possession. It takes a little more time, but customs will verify your passport against their records.
 
This is actually a pretty cool story. I might try this with my tablet (even though it's not an iPad) the next time I drive up to Canada. But I'll be sure to take my actual passport along with me, just in case the officer doesn't want to make "another exception."
 
huuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm......



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:rolleyes:............................

Do ya think they (the canadians) have ever heard of it ?

Surely terrorists would N E V E R use it to produce/forge electronic documents to gain entry to the US, nah, surely nOt...........
 
This is stupid he should have never been allowed to cross the border because he was too lazy to go home and get his passport. Also with the Nexus card, and other enhanced drivers licenses there should be no reason to be without valid border crossing documentation.
 
Oh, this is going to give illegal immigrants and other undesirables some ideas. :(
 
That is really funny...and super scary!

I wonder how many boarders that wouldwork at? JFK for example.
 
Pogo said:
well, i'm not sure why this is seen as a bad thing. i just recently got my passport renewed and traveled out of the country. The US passport office tells travelers to either have paper photocopies of your documents or to have digital scans in your possession. It takes a little more time, but customs will verify your passport against their records.
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One of the few posts in this thread so far that is not completely ignorant.
 
Pogo said:
well, i'm not sure why this is seen as a bad thing. i just recently got my passport renewed and traveled out of the country. The US passport office tells travelers to either have paper photocopies of your documents or to have digital scans in your possession. It takes a little more time, but customs will verify your passport against their records.
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Yep, I'm not sure why everyone's getting up in arms about this. Customs officials have passport records of every individuals in the world. Passport databases are one of the few things the entire world shares via the International Passport Record Bureau. The guy who had the digital passport has nothing to worry about as long as he's in the passport database.
 
Canadians are OK by me. You are supposed to have 3 copies (at least in the US) of your passport in case it gets lost. This includes digital scans.
 
I have to ask as a dual American-Canadian citizen. I haven't lived in Canada since I was very young. If I ever travel there, it'd be perferable to present the Canadian border officials my Canadian instead of American passport, right?
 
nerdydesi said:
I have to ask as a dual American-Canadian citizen. I haven't lived in Canada since I was very young. If I ever travel there, it'd be perferable to present the Canadian border officials my Canadian instead of American passport, right?
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It doesn't matter. Checking the database shows dual citizenship.
 
blaming the guy who entered is shooting the wrong target. Its the guy who let him in that should be fired. If you read the whole story , the citizen who entered was 30 min away from border when he realized he forgot it... so he tried and suceed.
 
arr4ws said:
blaming the guy who entered is shooting the wrong target. Its the guy who let him in that should be fired. If you read the whole story , the citizen who entered was 30 min away from border when he realized he forgot it... so he tried and suceed.
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Why even blame the Agent who let him in? He was perfectly in his legal capacity to do so, and it wasn't like the guy didn't have ANY proof at all. It was aformentioned that Customs officials have access to every passport in the entire world. I could see if he gave him an "I-Owe-You" or something; but he had a scanned legal document.
 
That's pretty cool. It's good to see things shifting this way.... it's a hell of a lot more convenient.

Slightly related but OT, over the summer I had to go to the DMV to get my hotrod put on the road. I called up my insurance agent on the way to the DMV, she wrote up a policy and faxed the insurance card to my email (which I was able to check on my phone).

When I got to the DMV, the lady at the counter was able to scan the insurance card into her computer right from the screen on my iPhone. It saved me a 45min trip to my agents office to pick up the card in person (or deal with the hastle of having her fax it directly to the DMV office)

Technology is a wonderful thing sometimes
 
When is the last time anyone ACTUALLY crossed the border into Canada / from Canada?

I just did it last year, all this talk about checking databases and the efficiency of the passport office / border patrol / etc. is re-tard-ed.

Those guys couldn't check their ass without help and, at least the places we crossed, they had no other way of checking / verifying anything except by phone and even then it had to be during business hours.

Hell, just for fun, call and talk to the customs department about your passport (just make something up, doesn't matter) and see how efficient they are. Even on the most basic level, it is a nightmare dealing with those people and you will spend days trying to get a simple answer out of them.
 
I read recently that Obama and Harper are in talks to open the borders and making the real checks at the airport security, terminals, etc.

If someone wants to get across the border it isn't all too hard.
 
Steve said:
When is the last time anyone ACTUALLY crossed the border into Canada / from Canada?

I just did it last year, all this talk about checking databases and the efficiency of the passport office / border patrol / etc. is re-tard-ed.

Those guys couldn't check their ass without help and, at least the places we crossed, they had no other way of checking / verifying anything except by phone and even then it had to be during business hours.

Hell, just for fun, call and talk to the customs department about your passport (just make something up, doesn't matter) and see how efficient they are. Even on the most basic level, it is a nightmare dealing with those people and you will spend days trying to get a simple answer out of them.
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I try to get up to Vancouver every year or two. I've not had any problems and they've been pretty thorough. You'll get an idiot or someone who doesn't care sometimes, but it hasn't been the norm for me.
 
Steve said:
When is the last time anyone ACTUALLY crossed the border into Canada / from Canada?

I just did it last year, all this talk about checking databases and the efficiency of the passport office / border patrol / etc. is re-tard-ed.

Those guys couldn't check their ass without help and, at least the places we crossed, they had no other way of checking / verifying anything except by phone and even then it had to be during business hours.

Hell, just for fun, call and talk to the customs department about your passport (just make something up, doesn't matter) and see how efficient they are. Even on the most basic level, it is a nightmare dealing with those people and you will spend days trying to get a simple answer out of them.
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They do have records. Nobody said it was well-kept :D

Nevertheless, I remember once I was driving back from Canada with a trunk full of applicances, food, and other things that don't need mentioning. They asked me if I had anything that I wasn't supposed to be carrying. "Nope," I replied; and I was on my way back to the USA.
 
Snooble said:
I read recently that Obama and Harper are in talks to open the borders and making the real checks at the airport security, terminals, etc.

If someone wants to get across the border it isn't all too hard.
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I've boated into Canada from Ross Lake in WA, there are no checks. They have a forest ranger station, but it's a really big lake.
 
To be honest, I am actually surprised they let him in. I cross the Peace Arch border every few weeks and the guards there are almost borderline nazi's in attitude. The I come back on the Canadian side their all smiley and friendly.
 
Two comments about this story.
#1 Apple marketing at its finest. The story is that the guy had a scanned copy of his passport on a tablet. That it was an Apple iPad is irrelevant to the story. Annoys the fuck out of me that the media reports it that way. Same when they say "iPhone app saved the mans life" when in reality it is a smartphone app that's available on all platforms (i.e. the CPR one). Apple has trained the media well.

At least some mod at Neowin hasn't sold out yet as he is reporting that Man crosses US-Canada border with scanned passport on tablet.

#2 It may still be illegal to actually make a color scan of one's passport. The law (which I couldn't find quickly) hasn't caught up to technology yet. I know for a fact that when Kinkos was still in business they would not scan or work with passport copies in any way.
 
nerdydesi said:
I have to ask as a dual American-Canadian citizen. I haven't lived in Canada since I was very young. If I ever travel there, it'd be perferable to present the Canadian border officials my Canadian instead of American passport, right?
Click to expand...

My sister ran into a bit of a snag with that. She lives in Canada, but has dual citizenship. For some reason, she couldn't get her Canadian passport due to some red tape, so she applied for and got a US one. She then went with the rest of my family to Kansas.

They gave her a bit of a third degree at the border wondering why she had a US passport while living in Canada when everyone else in the vehicle had a Canadian one.

But, they did let her through. Just took a little while to explain the situation to them.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I've boated into Canada from Ross Lake in WA, there are no checks. They have a forest ranger station, but it's a really big lake.
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I know it is dumb (a huge understatement) but even if you are just fishing, and you stray into the other countries waters, you have to report in.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/07/25/ottawa-gananoque-border-fishing-incident.html

"On May 30, 22-year-old Roy Andersen of Baldwinsville, N.Y., was fishing in the Gananoque Narrows when Canada Border Services Agency officers boarded his boat and informed him that he had entered Canadian waters.
Roy Anderson's boat was boarded as he fished in the Gananoque Narrows.
Asked if he had phoned in to say he was crossing, Anderson said he hadn't. Agency officials fined him $1,000, which he had to pay on the spot with his credit card to avoid having his boat seized."

Border thugs hard at work.
 
they dont even ask us stuff half the time coming back into Canada, just want to see photo ID and away you go
 
Thuleman said:
#2 It may still be illegal to actually make a color scan of one's passport. The law (which I couldn't find quickly) hasn't caught up to technology yet. I know for a fact that when Kinkos was still in business they would not scan or work with passport copies in any way.
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Kinko's can't do it for you, but you can do it yourself.
 
Draax said:
I know it is dumb (a huge understatement) but even if you are just fishing, and you stray into the other countries waters, you have to report in.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/07/25/ottawa-gananoque-border-fishing-incident.html

"On May 30, 22-year-old Roy Andersen of Baldwinsville, N.Y., was fishing in the Gananoque Narrows when Canada Border Services Agency officers boarded his boat and informed him that he had entered Canadian waters.
Roy Anderson's boat was boarded as he fished in the Gananoque Narrows.
Asked if he had phoned in to say he was crossing, Anderson said he hadn't. Agency officials fined him $1,000, which he had to pay on the spot with his credit card to avoid having his boat seized."

Border thugs hard at work.
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Yea, we checked in. I was just pointing out the border isn't even close to being secure.
 
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