Should a passport be part of your BOB?

Mixed results on whether or not you should include a passport in your EDC. What about in your BOB?

As part of BoB, at least a color photocopy if not the origional. Just like your insurance paperwork, medical records, and birth certificate.

Your passport should be in your BOB, or at least nearby so you can grab both at the same time.

The BOB is for fleeing, taking off, abandoning your vicinity, because it's risky to stick around. Anything left behind should be presumed to be unprotected. Anything you feel you really need should come with you. Good forms of identification should be among those things that come with you. Few things are as good as a passport.

I think a passport in a BOB is a legitimate use, much more so than say, EDC'ing a passport "just in case". Your BOB is when something "bad" has happened and you know that you have to get out of Dodge. Depending on the likely disasters in your locale, your home may not be there when you get back or may be inaccessible for a long time, so it makes sense to take important documents with you. And, if you're near a border and there's a good chance you'd cross over (say, you had friends/family on the other side that you could stay with) then certainly a passport is vital in that situation.

That said, if your BOB is kept stored in your vehicle or other place with a higher risk or vulnerability to theft than your own home (I'm talking about before you need the BOB, not while you're actually bugging out), I'd have to think twice about keeping valuable documents in the BOB. I'm thinking more along the lines of a BOB kept at home and sensitive documents are stored securely and then put into the BOB just before I need to head out.

I wouldn't carry a passport unless out of the country.

A lot of travellers carry a colour photocopy of their passport (stored separately of course), and have another one accessible to a family member or trusted friend. This helps your country's embassy or consulate issue an emergency passport quickly.

I suspect that in a genuine disaster, a passport photocopy in combination with other genuine ID would be worth having. It might help grease the bureaucratic wheels that grind so slow.

I can see keeping secure a color copy in case your passport was lost or stolen, but wouldn't you want to be carrying the original to use for its intended purposes?

Depending on the rules in your jurisdiction, it may be possible to have the copy of the passport (or of any other original document) notarized by a notary, attesting that the copy is a true copy of the original. Legally, it may have little meaning, but the stamp and signature on the document will show local authorities that you took extra care and it is amazing how impressed people can be by a rubber stamp.

The usual notary (e.g. at the bank) may not be familiar with how to do this as it requires different wording on the document (the attestation) than is used on the typical notary certification. Find someone who knows what they are doing to do it for you.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, bws48, good stuff.

Do we have anybody in the business of dealing with passports who could chime in?

Thanks.

I asked Mr. Google, he gave me lots of possibilities, here is one of them.

In part:

"Q: Can I certify a copy of a passport or a driver's license?
A: A Notary may certify the copy if law permits Notary-certified copies. An alternative in states not authorizing Notary-certified copies, is to perform a "copy certification by document custodian," whereby the holder of the original document certifies the copy in a written statement, and the Notary executes a jurat underneath the signed statement."

So I guess it varies depending on which state you live in. I suspect that googling something like "notarizing passport CA" will give more info...

The U.S. has a new Passport Card that can be used for land or sea re-entry into the U.S. from Canada and I believe from Caribbean cruises. It costs less than a regular passport. It is $20 if you already have a passport and $45 if you don't. It's the size of a credit card so it's a bit easier to carry, can serve as a spare of sorts and is a bit more durable than a regular passport. It might make a convenient back-up for some. I was planning on getting one but then travel to Juarez hasn't been that safe this year.

Ah, that's interesting. Oh, btw, Mexico is also a country listed. It says production started July 14, but doesn't say which year, but if it's 2008, then this is a very newly available document. Much more portable and durable than your standard passport. It could easily be slipped into your wallet like a regular credit card. Thanks for that link.

So now you get to ponder whether or not to get and include one, both, or neither the card or booklet in your BOB.

Now that is pretty slick. The perfect "second ID" all kinds of people want...

Maybe I read this tip here in the past but I have used it and past on it on since:

Color scan your credit cards, Driver license, passport, birth cert, etc and email them to a web based email account.

If you lose any of them you can usually find a pc to get them from online. How they're accepted by officials is another matter but I always feel safer knowing I have a back up only I can get to.

When I travel I generally email myself a copy of flight information and pre-scheduled route maps and important phone numbers (like to cancel stolen cards) as well as a copy of my insurance cards or event registration information. I have amazed myself at what I can destroy or lose or get wet and make unreadable/unusable.

Also,

Consider a USB thumb drive with an encrypted file (such as with True Crypt) with all your important documents.

You can also upload these encrypted files to a web based email account.

It might be a good idea to keep your BOB near a properly secured and hidden safe. That way, you can run to the safe to grab your documents, extra cash/coins/gold/whatever, and weapon(s) out of there first. Then, grab your BOB next to the safe, put your stuff in an outside pocket and go. It't not quite as fast as already having everything in the bag, but it can still be pretty quick and it adds a lot more security/safety.

Be very careful with the e-mailing of documents suggestions. Now I know the chances are slim that someone is going to be sitting in the middle intercepting that mail but I do know a lot of people who will sit down at a public pc and look through the cached internet files or temp files to see what they can find. You see any time you hit a web page the images are all cached locally and any time you open a document attachment those are either cached with the images or copied to a system temp location. A lot of places are smart about clearing those on a logoff or a reboot but a lot are not. So when you check your e-mail from public places you could be leaving traces behind.
Also coming from an IT background I knw its not uncommon to see IT people go do a search for *.mp3 or *.jpg on servers to see what they can find. Sometimes its legit to see if someone might have pirated or offensive material on company servers, sometimes its the guy that just got laid off looking to see what he can take with him.
Having been burned myself by Yahoo (caching credit card info allowing it to be stolen) and Hotmail (loosing everything I had stored there) I have backed far away from trusting online services.

Depends - do you have one already? Or the extra cash to get one?
Its a good second ID, and great for crossing borders -- but if you're not near a border or planning on traveling...then probably not.

Keeping your passport around in a BOB is kind of like keeping your social security card in your wallet. You need to get them out for certain activities, but it probably isn't a good idea to store them in a semi-secured where it can be stolen. I like the idea of keeping those documents in a safe in the house and grabbing them as I go out the door if necessry. I used to keep that documentation in a small fire safe that was easy to grab and go. In a gentler time I used to keep the key in the safe so a burgler would see it had no cash or jewels and leave it alone. Now the identitiy theft would be much more lucrative than cash! Now those documents are in a much more hardened location.