Police Ask Stores to Take Fingerprints

Coffee Warlord writes "Operation Thumbs Up, scheduled to begin citywide Sunday, aims to help authorities identify check theft and forgery by obtaining a source of identification that can't be stolen or faked - fingerprints. Dawson doesn't expect complaints from customers. "I anticipate if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter to you if someone takes your thumbprint," she said. -- There are so many things wrong with this, I can't even begin to start."

Comments

Why not take your DNA?

[Dr. Bent]

Why stop there? If check fraud is really that big of a problem, why not just take a hair sample from everyone who writes a check. Then, if you get a fraudlent check, just do a DNA test. I mean "...if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter..." Right?

Wrong. If information is power, you disempower yourself when you give up your personal information to a store, to the government, or to anyone. And I, for one, would never shop at a store with such a blatant disregard for my privacy. Here's an idea. If check fraud is that big of a problem...stop taking checks!

Re:Why not take your DNA?

[TheGratefulNet]

why stop at just a hair sample?

why not collect samples of:

• urine
• stool
• hair
• blood
• semen

or, to save time, I'll just give you my underwear and let YOU sort it all out!

Re:Why not take your DNA?

[realgone]

Alternately, if thumbprinting is that big of a problem for you... don't use checks! =)

Seriously, though, there's nothing stopping a consumer from paying with cash, credit, debit, or live clucking chickens. The simple fact is that checks have become an outdated and fraud-ridden payment system. Many of the stores I frequent have stopped accepting them entirely; the remainder will either have to follow suit before long or rely upon identity-based systems such as this.

Idealistically, it might be better for all these shops to drop checks and avoid the new privacy issues. (I'd prefer that myself.) Capitalistically, I don't think the market share is small enough for them to do that yet. Think of checks as being where the floppy disk was three years ago: just enough demand to keep them around.

Re:Why not take your DNA?

[uncoveror]

I suspect that many customers will respond to Operation Thumbs up with Operation Fingers Up.

Well, you could always drive them nuts by,

[Anonymous Coward]

Liguid Skin is a great way to conceal fingerprints, while it's wet press your thumb onto a stamp, say a Tux or the BSD Deamon. Barcodes would be fun too.

Can't be stolen or faked, eh?

[cryptor3]

How's a bit of jello for you?

Tsutomu Matsumoto, a Japanese cryptographer, recently decided to look at biometric fingerprint devices. These are security systems that attempt to identify people based on their fingerprint. For years the companies selling these devices have claimed that they are very secure, and that it is almost impossible to fool them into accepting a fake finger as genuine. Matsumoto, along with his students at the Yokohama National University, showed that they can be reliably fooled with a little ingenuity and $10 worth of household supplies.

Read More...

Convenince vs. Privacy...

[OneFix]

"Participating stores will be clearly identified to the public."

Translation: Warning sign...

This has always been the way things happen. ATMs take your photograph, stores take drivers license numbers, and some even try to take your SSN...I've seen this happen alot with student IDs (maybe unknowingly) that use your SSN.

There's always cash....However, I can't see how this is designed to help the rightful owner...if someone steals a checkbook, they can always go to a "non-participating location"...

Your phone/power/cable/water company isn't making you give them a fingerprint. I personally don't know of many ppl that still use a check...most ppl that I know are using "Check Cards".

I anticipate...

[frawaradaR]

... that if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter to you if the po-lice installs a few cameras in yer house.

After all, you are not pursuing any criminable activity within your own walls, are ya!?

I'd say, that if you _do_ mind being watched by an innocent camera, you behave suspiciously, and are probably guilty of a crime. After all, people who have nothing to hide usually cooperate with us.

If you do not want to cooperate with us, we will just assume that you in your house run a brothel, manufacture alcoholic beverages, grow marijuana, rip-mix-burn intellectual property protected material, commit sodomy, engage in adultery, prepare for polygami, manufacture Anthrax, communicate on ham radio with suspected terrorists and overthrowers of state, download lewd material on the internet, develop open source Communist applications, and showing anti-patriot emotions posting to unconventional and unorthodox bulletin board systems.

You, sir, are a threat to our free Christian nation, as given to us by God! You have the right to remain silence, be beaten to death in jail, be transferred to Guantanama Bay for unlimited time, be executed in our humane criminable system even if later DNA tests will prove you're less guilty than we first assumed. Everything you say can and will be recorded and used against you, anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

Be a pain in their ass.

[SagSaw]

First make sure this won't get you into legal trouble, as it may really piss off the store.

Go to a participating store. Appear at the checkout with a large number of items you wish to purchase (two cartloads of perishable food items should be good; extreamly heavy/bulky/difficult to handle items work, too). Offer to pay with a check, but refuse to give a finger/thumb print. Kindly ask the cashier if there is any way to pay with a check, but without giving the print. If the answer is no, explain to the cashier (better yet, their manager) that since they won't accept your check you have no way to pay. Leave (without the merchandise, of course).

Employees of the store will have to restock your entire attempted puchase, and some perishable items may have to be discarded. Enough people doing this will make it clear to the store that excessive ID collection is not an economically sound move.

Re:Be a pain in their ass.

[speaker4thedead]

You say that like they're being paid enough to deal with BS that was proposed.

If enough people on a regular enough basis were to do something like this, sure, it would work. On the other hand, going to the manager with one month's worth of grocery receipts(be sure to have them totaled,) and telling him politely that you, your friends and neighbors are not going to be shopping at his store anymore because of the policy is a much more productive way of dealing with the situation. Trust me, if you give the manager hard numbers, like a stack of receipts, it will make them sweat more than loading up a cart, throwing a tantrum in line, then making employees run all over the store putting up items will. If you do that, you're just a jackass, not an activist.