Slashdot Mirror
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.
ok, now dosen't this seem a little redundant? all references to 1984 aside, why do they have to take you picture? isn't it already on your drivers liscense?
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
Swiping licenses is used to prevent fake ids and it works very well. They are simply combining this with a way to keep track of trouble makers. Take off your tinfoil hats
No bar will ever be allowed to "swipe" my card, or share my personal information with anyone if I have anything to say about it. I'd rather not go in.
When it used to be called the hospitality business. If my neigborhood bars were as friendly as the DMV asking for pictures and keeping profiles on customer behavior... They wouldn't survive. This will not survive long... Think of your average college sports bar trying to keep up with photos of every out of town fan on game day.
Keep the tech out of bars for the good of us all. Even the idea of a glass that reports when a drink is getting empty is a waste of time. Remember that story? Work on the people skills and good judgement of your staff first.
A reason for people over 21 to use a fake ID.
This sort of policy will almost certainly backfire.
My driver's license has been demagnetized for over a year. I didn't see a benifit of having the ability to swipe my card, so I ran a magnet over it a few times. I wonder if they are going to let me in when my card fails on the swipe. This is a pretty good excuse for me to just buy cases of Canadian and watch the Canucks at home.
Pubcrawler.ca
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Theres going to be a booming busisness in fake ids though. I have absoloutly no problem with handing someone a fake id with the correct birthdate, and completely bogus other information. THe law requires them to check that i am over 21. That information is accurate, and therefore i am not defrauding anyone.
THe law does not require them to take a mugshot and collect private data for marketing.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I'm sure a system like this will become almost mandatory, as the insurance companies begin to charge triple for bars that don't participate in this system.
Sure, you can have a bar without this system, it's just it won't be financially viable as your montlhy insurance premium will be much higher than your competitors.
Just spewing thoughts here...
Can this system keep track of a 'bar tab' for me as well? Does it provide ANY value to me as a customer? (update: after RTFA, the answer given was 'give-up-your-anonymity-for-"safety"')
What if I get 'blacklisted'? How long does my name stay on the list?
Can I SEE the list? Will they at least TELL me I'm on the list?
Wait a second... Am I on this list automatically, once my picture/ID is recorded? Before I've even done anything? (See previous line)
I'm assuming the Police would LOVE access to this list, so they'll have it, officially or not. (update: I just RTFA; YES, they can subpoena info from the list)
I'm assuming local employers will LOOOVE access to this list... A reason to fire current employees or refuse future candidates.
(update: after RTFA, and I love the comparison of this system with renting a car. I didn't know going to a bar was so serious...)
One passing comment on my way out of the bar about how the 200 pound gorilla with no neck gaurding the door has a girlfried who's boob's are way too big - and I'm 'barred' from every local establishment within the speed of a mouse click. Just what we need. More bouncers on power trips. It sounds like this system is just screaming with abuse potential.
Ever hear of the patriot act?
I was thinking the same thing, and was going to comment along those lines. But once this data has been collected & stored somewhere, what's to stop it from being subpoena, or otherwise leaked outside of it's intended use? It really does get down to the point that once someone starts taking notes on your behavior, that information can end up anywhere.
It's up to the consumer to discourage these practices with their dollars; the regulars with privacy in mind will either not be photographed or will find new watering holes.
...those records are subpoena'd because there was a fight in the bar, or near the bar, or a DUI suspected to have been at the bar or whatever. The more databases you build, the easier you make it to actually pull together a profile when "big brother" sees the need.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Not everyone wants to be in a bar with a crowd of drunken rowdies. The ones who will be the most averse to this will be the troublemakers who will go elsewhere.
I don't go to bars here in Vancouver, I do go to pubs in the U.K. (at least not near a football ground). I'm looking for a quiet, relaxed atmosphere where I can enjoy a drink with my mates or my wife (not necessarily in that order).
The picture taking is a bit much, though. With regards to potential swiping damage, should they use the 2D bar code as an alternative as BC's pretty driver's licenses have both?
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
in Winnipeg (its in Canada, for those educated in the US)
And Canada is in the United States. (For those educated in Canada). You sound like us, you look like us, you drive North American cars, and your beers suck as bad as anything from Budweiser.
Im not doing anything bad,
And when they came for me, no one was left to speak for me....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The problem with all of this information collection isn't the immediate positive use of it, but rather the long term potential for abuse once the information is out there. What happens if you piss off a bartender at one of these bars because you were hitting on his girlfriend or tipped him badly? He could put a black mark in the system and you'd not be able to get into a number of bars.
Also, what if somebody just has one bad night where things got a little out of hand and they get a black mark in the system? Like most bars, regardless of who starts a fight will kick out everybody involved. So what if you just get caught up in something accidentally?
The problem with these systems isn't that they'll help a bar to stop the most egregious offenders, but rather the possibility that the system will, either through mistake or intention, ban the innocent for no good reason.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This is simply one of the scariest post i have read in a long time. This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon: it's amazing what you can get used to. Big Brother is here, and people are sheep and accept it. Simply scary.
The government is not necessarily the problem. The government is one possible source of control over your life. But only one. In America, at this point, corporations are more likely to be imposing on your freedoms than the government. The government has certain statutory limitations that still stand on what it's allowed to do to a private citizen, and the government has some tiny amount of accountability to the people since the people can exert a certain amount of influence by voting. Businesses, however, do not share these limitations, and people these days spend far more time interacting with businesses than they do interacting with their government.
OK, so we're at a point where anyone in this bar network can get the information on who's been drinking in the bars in this town. Now let's say, as a random aside, after a couple years, a small subsidiary of Time Warner just happens to buy one of these bars. Now let's say that two or so years later, you happen to be working for Time Warner, and your boss calls you in, looking at something on your personell file on the company intranet, and wanting to know why it is that the BarWatch statistics program is showing that you were in area bars for 35 hours this weekend when your project is two weeks behind schedule. Couldn't that time have been better spent on unpaid overtime...?
Or perhaps there will come a time in three years when you don't make rent, and your landlord simply promptly hands that debt off to a collection agency becuase that's an easy way of dealing with it. And all of a sudden when you swipe your drivers license at a bar, the bar, which has a certain complex deal with the credit union, is denying you entrance unless you pay the $200 that the computer says you owe to CCAA local #223..
These scenarios do not seem terribly realistic. However, it is definitely plausible. And a year ago, when slashdot was running the story that bars had started swiping drivers licenses instead of just looking at them, the people saying "THEY'LL JUST USE THIS TO TRACK YOU NEXT!" did not seem very realistic at all.
There's somehow this idea floating around that only the government wants to control you. This is a silly way to look at things. Anywhere in human social interactions that power collects is a source of danger.
All seek to enslave you, and I've already got this ravenous beast of plaster to deal with.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The metal detector part most of all. See I live in Arizona. Here, it's legal to carry a gun either openly or concealed. You need a permit to conceal it, but openly anyone can do, no permit required. Plenty of people do carry guns regularly too, or knives (covered by the same law as guns). However, they aren't allowed in bars. You either need to leave them in your car, or check them at the door.
So, being that lots of people have and carry guns, you'd think here would be a more likely candidate for metal dectors. Nope, never seen one in any bar. They just trust you'll obey the law. Seems that people do, too, I haven't heard of any bar shootings.
Well it then strikes me as odd that Canda, which has far more restrictive handgun laws, would find it necessary to do this. I wonder if it is parionia or if bargoers in Canada like to pack heat illegally.
In addition to simply demagnetizing the stripe, you could re-encode the stripe with new information...like you're really over 21...or your name is really something else, et cetera.
With barcodes you can always put a sticker with a new barcode over the original barcode. You would have to be looking really hard to notice, if done right (remember people printing up new UPC barcodes for Wal Mart products?)
The only type of machine readable document implement that is difficult to change are simultaneously human readable...the readable characters on the passport (found on the first page on most passports and have lots of little >>>>>>>> thingies) were originally conceived on a privacy basis, because people would always know what's encoded in their passports. I cite the security advantages, since a human can read what the machine can read, and its easy for a human to double check that.
Not that they would. When a human has a machine to read a document, they will almost always just trust what the machine says, and not check what the document says.
There are plenty of places Big Brother is urgently applicable today. Just not here.
Central to George Orwell's image is the notion of coercion. You are certainly coerced if the government requires you to participate in an invasive information system by law. And there are many ways you can experience more subtle coercion "by policy" as well... because you ostensibly have the freedom not to participate, but only in theory.
This seems like one case when this kind of technology is OK - because participating in it is something people can choose to do - or not - by exercising their options in a healthy, competitive marketplace.
For the sake of comparison, POTS telephone companies (regional monopolies; barrier to entry: illegal), or CPU companies (only two x86 players; barrier to entry: inconceivable) are not "healthy, competitive" marketplaces.
Monopolies like Microsoft requiring the installation and maintenance of DRM systems? Coercion, possible because of an (extremely) unhealthy marketplace.
Verizon saying "I'm going to sell your phone records to marketers?" Coercion. Where are your alternatives if you want to opt out?
But bars aren't like that at all.
I couldn't see myself going to any place that did this, but I don't think I could say they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Let them track and photograph their patrons in ways even the Vegas casinos won't do. No one forces you to go a bar. Opening a bar is within the grasp of many, many entrepeneurs. This means (within reason) you will be able to opt out. This kind of security measure should succeed, or fail (and who can guess which, in the end?), in that marketplace based on its merits.
What I worry about? If that's what it takes to keep bars running well, what does it say about our society?
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
This way, any guy who works at the bar, or is friendly with the bouncer, can find out who that really hot chick is at the end of the bar. Get her home address, wait outsdie for her when she gets home. Call her to say hi.
Dont tell me it wont be used for this. I used to work someplace making IDs on a computer system. The security guys would come in all the time and ask "Hey, girl with brown hair, blue eyes, in this building, whats her name?" Pull up the list of pictures, get the info. Then they can go look at the security system to look up her schedule, then just happen to meet her going in or coming out of the building. Theres a very, very thin line between manufactruing an excuse to meet a cute girl, and stalking.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
At University of Illinois in Champaign, most bars had a variation of this: They had a camera at the door, it'd grab a picture of your face, then they'd slide your ID under another camera that went onto the same video tape - thus giving them a picture of the ID *AND* of you.
Why?
So when the cops showed up and busted underagers who got rid of their fake IDs when they saw the cops coming (which would be wise, since using one in IL gets you a 1 year suspension of your license), the bar could point to the video tape and say "We checked this person, they gave us this ID, and yes, they look like the picture on the ID", thus sparing the bar the nasty fine and potential liquor license revokation from letting in someone underage.
paintball
I applaud you for being one of the FEW americans who actually understand that.
Well, according to the article, not too many Canadian realize it, either. And yes, I would love for that to happen in our own country, but us Americans are too paranoid about blaming drugs/music/TV/popstars/etc. for our children's dirty little minds. However, with Canada and England doing the same thing so quickly, it's only a matter of time before it will happen here.
Zodiac Survey
they literally ALMOST KILLED HIM ... One of them even pulled out a collapsable baton and hit him while he was down ... they started beating her with the baton ... In-bar muggings and shootings are on the rise
Hmmm, somehow I doubt we'll hear about this in Michael Moore's next documentary.
If they have a data trail for each visit, they can also mine for frequency of visits. How long till they start providing this data to insurance companies? People who frequent bars most = statistically more likely to have health problems, motoring accidents, lose their jobs, etc.
Before everyone yells 'privacy policy' I will point out that most (all?) medical insurers will not insure you unless you give up the right to privacy of your medical records.
IMHO, legal privacy protections are ultimately useless, as soon as any record exists, powerful organisations will find a way to obtain it.
For the Americans reading this, the BC Liberals are to the left of every state you have. Calling them "incredibly right wing" is like calling North Korea a triumph of the market system.
They took over from the NDP, who are like your Green party, winning the province with a 73-2 majority (2 seats since lost to infighting).
Actually if this helps, think of British Columbia as California's communist college roommate.
My list of multiplayer
Vancouver Bars Network Together to Track Patrons
Interesting way to put the spin on it. I have another idea.
Vancouver Bars Network Together to Protect Customers
If I go to a bar and bump into the wrong person, I'm going to get my ass kicked (if I'm lucky), or, like another poster mentioned, I'm going to get beaten within an inch of my life. This is a big reason I don't go to bars. The worst part is, if it happens, I'm probably on my own. In a city the size of Vancouver, it's not too easy to find someone based on what four people almost saw.
With this system in place, the bars know where I go, but they also know who was there, with photos, so if I get laid out, I can say 'yeah, that's the guy' and they have records of him swiping in/out of the bar, so they know he was there.
I don't meet a lot of belligerant people, but when I do, coincidentally, most of them are drunk. If I'm given reassurances that there will be penalties for people who harm me, I'll feel a lot safer going out and having a good time. And that translates into me spending more money. That being said, having to empty one's pockets, as another poster mentioned is a real pain in the ass.
--Dan
I don't believe in $$ but you gotta do what you gotta do to get what you want/need. Personally I'm thinking this is going to be abused to give PI's and DUI's to people without the police even having to be around. It's like the radar guns with cameras mounted on them. John Doe drank 3 beers at bar A, drove to bar B and drank 4 more, drove to bar C and drank 2 more, BAC calculated at higher than allowed, police contact and you get a PI if you can prove you had a driver or a DUI if you can't. Another scenario, bartender at bar A is a total jerk and kicks you out for cheering for the opposing football team on the TV, puts you down as a nuicance, and suddenly your banned from the other bars? It's a load of crap.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
I understand what you're saying, but survailance isnt the answer. You can't survail(is that a word? haha) everywhere. I'm sure cameras in every home, and tracking bracelets on every person would preven most or all crime. But would you be willing to do this?
The ends dont justify the means.
As for not going...I wont, and neither will a lot of other people. People are paranoid enough already about this sort of thing. When the bars notice their business has dropped off and gone to other bars, they will be quick to abandon it.
I personally would never go to a bar that wants to track me like that. Ive never been in a bar fight or been thrown out of any bar for any reason. But its beeing assumed im a criminal anyways.
Hell, im the one usually critisizing slashdot for their knee-jerk tinfoil hat reactions. But this isnt a tiny device you cant read from more than a foot away, this is an actual data-logging and tracking system on my whereabouts in the bar circuit. I'm sorry, but this IS big brother hard at work and I wont have any part of it.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.