Nearly a million passports and photo IDs were left unprotected on the public internet

What happened

According to The Verge’s source item, Nearly a million passports and photo IDs were left unprotected on the public internet, Typing a few letters and numbers into my web browser, I find myself gaping at the identity documents of complete strangers. The passport of a young woman from Germany. The passport of a man from Spain with glasses resting on his head. The front and back of another man’s driver’s license, a stereotypically goofy expression […] Typing a few letters and numbers into my web browser, I find myself gaping at the identity documents of complete strangers. The passport of a young woman from Germany. The passport of a man from Spain with glasses resting on his head. The front and back of another man’s driver’s license, a stereotypically goofy expression on his face. They were all sitting unprotected at public URLs, with no password or access control of any sort. If I sent you a link, you could have looked at someone’s passport. “We have to do something about it as fast as possible, because p

Context

The development sits in VINI’s Technology file for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-06-10T21:55:00+00:00.

What to watch

Open questions include whether primary sources issue follow-up statements, whether local or market impacts become clearer, and whether additional reporting changes the timeline or adds material context.

Source

Primary source: Nearly a million passports and photo IDs were left unprotected on the public internet via The Verge. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.