What can someone do with a photo of my passport?

Factual Questions
1

Have stayed in hotels in Japan many times, and it’s typical for them to take a photocopy of my passport for their records. If a miscreant grabs a copy of that photo, it won’t be good enough quality to make a passable fake passport, but they’ll know my name, birthdate, and passport number. What can they do with that info?

2

Here are fairly thought out ideas of what scammers could do with your passport info.

What Can Scammers Do With Your Passport Number?.

3

That’s a superb analysis. One thing I didn’t see in there, which is a minor risk (and is a downstream outcome of any kind of identity theft, which is mentioned) - if a scammer uses a fake identity based on your passport, and commits a serious crime, there’s a possibility that your life will be interrupted and inconvenienced, perhaps severely, by law enforcement agencies investigating you.

4

Thanks for the link. It’s a little disconcerting to see what’s possible, but it’s also comforting to see what’s probable and improbable. From your link:

In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received nearly 1,000 reports of passport fraud.

So it seems an unlikely thing that I shouldn’t fret much about. And there’s not much I can do before the fact anyway, since I don’t get a hotel room if I don’t let the hotelier capture my passport details. Thanks to data hacks/breaches against my employer, I’ve had free credit monitoring services for several years now; maybe I’ll pay to keep these services going after the free period ends…

5

The Canadian government over the years (along with others) has strongly objected to Mossad using Canadian passports as fake ID’s for their agents in other countries. Recall when there was an assassination of a Palestinian leader in Dubai quite a few years ago, one of the agents carried a passport which identified him as a British citizen, and was the (fake) passport an actual person in Britain (who was not the agent). I guess a goernment agency can create fake passports good enough to satisfy customs and an airport passport scanner.

The complaint is that if “the other side” starts to think Canadians, or Brits, or French could instead be Mossad it may not go well for normal tourists. (Same sort of complaint when the CIA used the guise of doctors doing a vaccine program to reconnoiter bin Laden’s hideout - making real vaccine campaign workers more likely suspect in future.)