Maybe it’s just a byproduct of my well known (and beloved) laziness, but I can’t stand carting around documents, school records, certificates, passports, and bank account details. But there’s so much important paperwork related to all of us. Every time you fill out a government form you can be asked for your passport number, social security details, bank SWIFT code details, IFSC numbers, or PAN card number. Often you need to provide copies of various documents. When you travel to another city or country you’re forced to carry a dossier of all the stuff you might need. And if it’s this bad for individuals, imagine the headaches a business must face with archive storage.
At a personal level, I’ve found a variety of solutions that move all my documentation to the cloud. Using a mix of online document editors and online encrypted data services, I always have quick and easy access to most of the important stuff without needing to have the originals with me. I remember a time I was at the doctor’s and I didn’t have immediate access to my social security details. Thanks to my foresight, I was able to get them online using one of the services I’d signed up for. This to me is the future of storage. Original documents, birth certificates, school records and passports can be safely stored away in one place while digital copies reside in the cloud. Always accessible. Always safe.
I use Google Docs to store copies of important stuff like my passport and PAN cards all neatly organized into folders. When I need a copy I simply download them and take a print out. But when it comes to other information like my bank account details and credit card info and perhaps even banking passwords, I want a more secure encrypted solution. For this, I use LastPass. It’s free and has a convenient pre defined “secure notes” functionality that I find immensely useful. It’s perfect for pins, bank details and sync keys. The data is encrypted on their servers using your secret passphrase so even LastPass employees themselves cannot access it. The data is yours. Truly and completely.
Incidentally, LastPass is a great way to keep your online passwords safe. I make sure that I use the inbuilt password generator to create complex passwords for all the sites I have an account with – hundreds of them. They’re all stored securely using high end encryption and I can access them from any browser using the plugin they provide. It’s never let me down. And in case you’re paranoid, you can download a backup that’s also encrypted or in a spreadsheet. Your choice.
It’s the 21st century! We should use the technology available to us in order to make our lives easier. When we have the tools to do it, why don’t we?