Anonymous Library Cards An Option?

Ben Ostrowsky writes "On the heels of the possibility of requiring fingerprinting to use library resources, librarians don't like hoarding personally identifiable information; many are keenly aware of privacy concerns. Now it appears that anonymous library cards may be a possibility on the horizon. Tell your librarian you want to be anonymous!" From the article: " You've seen anonymous cash cards already; you may even have received them before. They're better known as gift cards. Using the same principle, libraries can issue a borrower card that uses cash, rather than personal ID information, as collateral. Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying herself. Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its original value."

Comments

Re:Who will pay for this?

[garcia]

This is a great idea, not only for privacy, but for convenience. You get to use the ressource without the hassle, and it doesn't cost you a fortune, you loan them money, they loan you a book, you exchange it back when you are done. Everyone's happy!

Privacy? There is no privacy here. It's a violation of privacy when you have to give up your personal identity for convenience . There is absolutely no excuse for that and you (and people like you) are exactly the reason why identity theives and the government are winning.

Why this is a bad idea

[Brian Stretch]

Maybe this article will prove enlightening. One of the more interesting quotes:

The Pakistani-born, Queens-reared Babar frequented the New York Public Library (NYPL). As Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee September 22: "We found out after we locked this guy up that he was going there because that library's hard drives were scrubbed after each user was done, and he was using that library to e-mail other al-Qaeda associates around the world. He knew that that was a sanctuary."

Most of the only time knowing what the bad guys did at a library is only helpful after the fact, but that can help a lot. Creating all these anonymizing systems in libraries is attracting the people that the government is rightly worried about. Is it really bright for governmental organizations (like public libraries) to expend the extra effort to do that?

Let's see how long it takes for this to get modded down to "-1, Troll".

Re:Forget Illinois

[geoffspear]

But Alberto Gonzales testified that the PATRIOT Act had never been used to try to get information from a library. Are you accusing the Attorney General of committing a federal crime by lying to Congress? I'm shocked... shocked!