iPhone scanner app secures important travel documents

There can be few things more dispiriting than arriving at a check-in desk, only to find that your passport has expired.

New scanner app to help secure important travel documents. Image by Chris Fleming / CC BY 2.0

Worse again of course, is the loss or theft of a passport while abroad, a not uncommon problem with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office having to provide more than 30,000 emergency travel documents each year.

One service that could come in useful for the absent-minded – and plain unfortunate – is Docady, an app that lets you scan and organise all of the most important documents you have.

The app effectively turns an iPhone into a scanner, reading official documents and then filing it to specific categories like travel, medical or car.

As it scans the copy of your passport, it actually reads the information, and can even alert you when the expiry date is closing in.

If important travel documents do go missing, then at least a backup copy is available, which can prove useful in emergency situations.

The company’s chief executive Nadav Naaman told Lonely Planet: ‘Documents like passports, visas, vaccination documentation and many others that travellers might need to pull up at a moment’s notice are available with the swipe of a finger, taking away the stress of remembering where documents are while travelling.

‘Even before the trip, Docady will [also help] make sure all of your documentation is up to date, avoiding mishaps at the airport.’

The app puts an emphasis on security using military, government and bank standards to ensure documents, once uploaded, do not become vulnerable.

Docady also has some other interesting features for people who have already left too many traces of personal information in their digital footprint.

Travellers in particular are vulnerable to keeping too much sensitive data stored in email accounts – or elsewhere online – without enough security.

Mr Naaman said: “Much as we try to stay organised, we tend to forget where we’ve stored our documents online. Most people are unaware of how many vital documents they have in their cloud storage, and where they are.

“In fact, we noticed that over 60% of our users unknowingly had copies of critical documents scattered throughout their digital footprint.”