A man who forgot his passport on his way to the United State's border discovered a new method to get in - his Apple iPad.

Martin Reisch, a Canadian, said Tuesday that a U.S. border officer was a bit annoyed at him as he crossed from Quebec into the United States after he showed a scanned passport recorded on his iPad. He stayed for 30 minutes in the border before he had thought of getting in instead of going back home to take his passport.

He explained to the officer that he was coming to U.S. to give Christmas presents for his friends' children.

According to him the officer was meekly annoyed as he handed to him the iPad.

Canadians started to require not just the driver's license for identification for American land border crossings last 2009. American customs and border protection said that it only requests passport, a Nexus pass or driver's license.

The list didn't include duplicates such as photocopies and scans. The department spokesman did not quickly answer queries regarding the acceptance of scanned passports at the U.S. border.

Reish said he scanned a picture of his passport some years ago and stored it in his iPad in case it got stolen or lost while he was on travel. He also claimed that he used a digital copy of his passport stored on his iPad to pass through the Canadian Customs as he headed back home.

He said he's not sure if he could do the same thing again and would surely carry his passport the next time he travels. But he wishes border authorities will ultimately accept digital identification as an official figure of travel passes.

He also said that there are a lot of airlines now which are accepting digital copies of boarding passes saved on smartphones.