Well now, one would have thought that in the good old US of A they would be somewhat strict on people entering the country without a real passport considering just how US security has been beefed up due to terrorist acts in the past, but apparently at least in one case the Apple iPad actually served as a valid passport to gain entry into the United States.

It would appear that the iOS slate could be used as an electronic passport to gain entry into the US as according to the guys over on Ubergizmo by way of USA Today; 33-year old Canadian Martin Reisch gained entry into the country by showing a scan of his passport on his Apple iPad.

Apparently Reisch was on his way to the states to deliver some Christmas presents to a friend’s children and discovered he had left his passport at home. When stopped at the border, Reisch presented his drivers license and rather than drive the to-hour trip back home to get his passport decided to show a scan of his passport on his iPad.

Low and behold, after several minutes of deliberation the border officer accepted the iPad scan as proof of passport identity and Reisch was allowed to enter the USA. Furthermore on returning to Canada later in the day, Reisch used the Apple iPad again to gain entry back into Canada.

Seems somewhat of a bit of a security breach to me, but then I guess the border officer involved was feeling in a festive mood when he accepted the iPad passport scan, although it does leave a little cause for concern as to whether anyone else would be able to get away with it. No word on whether the border officer has been dragged over the carpet over the matter either.

So what do our readers think, should the border officer have accepted the iPad passport scan or should he have turned Reisch back home to get the original document before allowing entry into the US?

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