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Pay Dirt in Scanned Driver's Licenses

Posted by michael on from the sutter's-mill dept.

The New York Times has a good article explaining why handing over your national ID card to be scanned may not be such a good idea.

2 of 559 comments (clear)

  1. My driver's license isn't public by mblase · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I don't have my driver's license publicly available. I keep it in my wallet, tucked away, and display it only when someone needs to see it. For a police officer, that may require knowledge of my address and full name, and that's well and good.

    A bar does NOT need to know that information. The only thing they need to know is whether or not I'm old enough to buy liquor. My name, address and so forth are "need to know" information, and the bar definitely does not need to know that just because I walk in their door.

    The bar has absolutely no right to use that kind of information to their advantage. Just because it's written in the same place as my age doesn't mean they have a right to record and data-mine it.

    If this becomes a persistent problem, then NY State should respond with an updated license. In addition to the data recorded on that magnetic strip, it should include the equivalent of an opt-in checkbox: "Do you want this data to be used for commercial purposes?" Any merchant who swipes my card would then be LEGALLY REQUIRED to honor my request, under penalty of heavy fines.

  2. Re:Why so paranoid? by Stoutlimb · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If I knew everything about you, there's no end to the stuff I could do to fuck you up. No end. And nobody would ever have to know who did it, why, or even know if it happened at all. I guess you trust that nobody would ever want to do this to you, for any reason. Not even... to get your money!?