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Vancouver Bars Network Together to Track Patrons
Tortured Potato writes "The Vancouver Sun reports
that bar owners in the area will soon start
tracking patrons by photo and driver's license. 'John Teti, chairman of the coalition,
said the vote is merely a formality. "We have
full backing from our members," Teti said
Monday....Once the system is in place, patrons
will be asked to stand in front of a camera to
have their picture taken and will then swipe
their drivers' licence, or possibly show some
other form of identification, that will
automatically give the establishment the patron's
name and age and show if he or she has caused
trouble at any other bar on the network.' I'm
glad to see that Big Brother is alive and well on
the left coast." This is the next step past merely swiping licenses.
I make it a point to not go to places that want to scan my license... and when I'm in the right mood, I drink a lot... really a lot (usually without causing trouble, never been cut off, in a barfight, or eight-sixed)
I mean, *really a lot*...
if you want me, I'll be down the street at the place that doesn't care who I am, giving them a bunch of money.
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
I wiped out the magnetic strip on my driver's license after a bouncer at a club in NYC swiped my card before I could say anything. Friends told me this was going to cause me trouble the next time I got stopped by the cops. Last Saturday I got pulled over for not wearing a seat belt and the cop had no trouble handing me a $30 ticket and sending me on my way. I have not been back to a club that uses the swipers since I cleaned it off, so I don't know if they would let me in, but it was no trouble with a cop.
Free cell phone tracking
They are talking about (dance) clubs that tend to have line ups anyways. The pub-type bars won't require this.
- NO drinking after 2
- NO drinking after midnight on sundays.
- NO selling of hard alchohol except in government liqour stores
- NO drinking in public
- NO smoking in bars
this is a place where during large events like fireworks and newyears, the cops stand at the subway exits downtown and search (illegally) and confiscate peoples' unopened and hidden alchohol.You want to have drive-through bottle shops??
California Makes Getting A License Easy. All you need is a fake mexican consular id and you can be anybody. Fudging the picture will take some work though.
The bar owners can call up your picture and information. so when you cause a fight, or don't pay your bill, then in a few min all the other bars in the system get an alert with your picture and name etc. so you then can't go down the road to a new bar and try the same thing again..(or in the future, go to any bar in the system without that bar knowing what problems you have caused at other bars before)
Actually, the government has forced it to be their business, since the bar and bartenders can be held liable if you are served alcohol in their establishment, leave, and drunkenly hit someone or something. These are called Social Host Liability laws, or "Dram Shop" acts.
In fact, you could argue that the bars would be negligent in not instituting such a system. They also have monetary incentive since they will probably get insurance breaks for doing so.
It is telling, if not surprising, that in all of the media coverage, I have yet to hear the bar owners address the issue of privacy legislation. BC's forthcoming private sector privacy law, Bill 38, due to come into effect Jan 1st 2004, imposes very specific requirements upon organisations handling personally identifiable information, including collection, use, consent and access, among others. I'd be interested to hear BC's Information and Privacy Commissioner's view on this proposed scheme - as far as I can tell, the bar owners have not made any consideration of the legal duties this legislation will impose upon them.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Back when I was a doorman/bouncer, we used this thing called a memory. We had a network too...If I turfed somebody, they were barred for life. If I was out drinking at another bar, and I saw somebody I had barred, I'd tell the doorman that the guy was likely to be a problem and he'd do likewise. This was in Ottawa, which is a good sized city.
No bar in Vancouver that institutes this will ever get my business, and I live in that neck of the woods. And I drink and tip heavily (parse that how you will).
Bars that want my photograph before they'll take my money. What will they think of next?
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
I live in Vancouver, and one thing that you need to realize is that this system is going to be implemented in night clubs, not pubs. Line ups for clubs downtown on Friday or Saturday nights are already routinely an hour as early as 9pm, and so taking the time to swipe a drivers license isn't going to add anything to the overall time frame. In any case, its already policy for these bars to check everyone's ID, and as such everyone is already trained to be prepared and to not hold things up.
In the end, I actually think that this is a really good idea. There has been a growing problem with date rape drugs as of late, and measures such as this will help at least a little bit to make the bars safer.
If you read the article very little information is actually garnered from swiping the license. The only information contained on the magnetic strip on BC drivers licenses is the same information that's physically printed out, including date of birth. Even if it does nothing for safety, this system will have help keep 16 year olds out of the bars since IDs will become that much more difficult to forge. That's not something I have a problem with.
As long as it's private businesses fine. I won't frequent those places, but fine. Big Brother is not bars banding together it's the government tracking you and mandating that you submit to the tracking. You still have a choice to drink here or not. I simply choose not too. If enough people take the same stance (unlikely) then it will go away eventually if not they they'll track people and the possibility of a true Big Brother coming along at some point in the future to take the data for other uses is a danger. And so to reiterate I won't drink here, but it's not currently Big Brother.
- The organization in question, Barwatch, donated $5000 to the incredibly right-wing Liberal party (go figure) that currently runs the province. The same organization was behind a fight with the worker's compensation board of BC regarding the rights of workers not to have to work in a cloud of second-hand smoke. The Liberals changed the law to remove the WCB ventilation requirements.
- The same liberals have passed (I think) some privacy legislation that allows disclosure of personal information collected by observation at a performance, sports meet, or a similar event that is open to the public (Think Tampa superbowl), and allows organisations not to tell individuals what information they have, "if the disclosure of the personal information would reveal confidential commercial information that if disclosed, could, in the opinion of a reasonable person, harm the competitive position of the organization". In other words, it's pretty wide open.
- This isn't the first time Barwatch has cranked up surveillance of its patrons: This article mentions that video taping has been going on in Barwatch bars for three years before the article was written, in 1999. It also demonstrates that while these programs are justified by safety concerns, they are also used for marketing data.
- These guys have some power: Apart from the smoking legislation, Barwatch also lobbied to implement bus service later, and allow bars open later. Recently, the BC Liberal party allowed bars to be open until 4 AM on Fridays, and Translink began offering night bus service to at least SFU.
- On his geocities resume web site, Bradley Shende claims to be the Barwatch founder. According to his site, "Barwatch is an original concept. It's purpose was to establish communication between licensed establishments and the various branches of municipal law enforcement and regulation to create a forum of co-operation rather than adversity, and to set standards by which we would all operate our licensed premises. The organization has been a success over the years and is now branched out into the US and all over Canada." Apparently he is also "a quick study on systems and software". Nice win2k experience, Bradley.
- Barwatch has changed their phone number, and no longer has a web presence (www.barwatch.org as posted on Shende's web site). I was unable to contact them before posting this. The often cited name of the chair and spokesman of Barwatch is Vance Campbell.
I'm usually a proponent of strong authentication; I sign all my mail with gpg. However, I know that this makes me uncomfortable and I probably won't be going to these establishments.The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
Interesting concept, I hope they get good use out of it for the next 3 months. After that, they're toast, because that's when (01Jan04) Canada's privacy legislation covers all businesses in Canada. Currently only firms that either:
... are covered by the legislation.
a) transfer identity information over provincial boundaries b) collect information on behalf of the Federal or Provincial governments
or c) are a government agency
A couple of points:
a) The business must provide specific details as to what, if anything, they will do with personal information collected;
b) They must get your specific permission to expand on whatever they said they would do with it when they collected the information;
c) They must not collect more information than is absolutely neccessary to perform whatever purpose they described in a) above;
d) The information must be collected for a bona fide reason; ie if they don't need your name to sell you a pack of gum for cash, forget it;
e) If there is no bona fide business reason to collect such information, they must sell you whatever service they provide when you refuse to identify yourself.
I can casually see several legal objections to what the bars are intending to do. Look for this to die a quiet death.
Good Grief!
Doesn't anyone in Canada just go out for a beer?
Thank Christ I live in Australia!
In my local pub, if people start trouble the locals generally step in, closely followed by the bouncers (on a friday or saturday night).
The RSL clubs (Returned services leagues clubs) have used ID cards for years. This is used because of rules that determine whether you are a member or guest based on your locality to the venue.
Nobody really seems to complain...you get cheaper beer!
Until the participating bar owners work on a few anti-competitive laws to make it a requirement. Around here, years back, the department stores decided they didn't want to deal with smoking, ashtrays, etc., so they got a law passed making it illegal to smoke in stores over a certain size.