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England Starts Fingerprinting Drinkers
dptalia writes "In an effort to reduce alcohol related violence, England is rolling out mandatory fingerprinting of all pub patrons. If a pub owner refuses to comply with the new system, and fails to show 'considerable' reductions in alcohol-related crimes, they will lose their license. Supposedly the town that piloted this program had a 48% reduction in alcohol-related crime." From the article: "Offenders can be banned from one pub or all of them for a specified time - usually a period of months - by a committee of landlords and police called Pub Watch. Their offenses are recorded against their names in the fingerprint system. Bradburn noted the system had a 'psychological effect' on offenders."
I am wondering how this will affect non-citizens of England, will U.S. or foreign visitors need to be fingerprinted as well and if so, that means that our fingerprints are in a foreign system, I am wondering how this info will be used, since the U.S. has demanded that the UK and all EU countries give the U.S. passenger data, will this info be used as a counter tactic to stop this practice.
Well, the UK has always had new crazy, privacy-destroying laws and powers. I find the English completely irrational considering how they go apeshit at the thought of a national ID card, but let things pass like continuous camera surveillance, excessive powers to any government instance, etc. Ripe for abuse. Maybe it's an Anglo-Saxon mindset?
Continental Europe is different - they're a bit more strict on privacy laws. There's always a big stink made when some stuff like this happens, like when euro passenger data is shared with the US, or like when SWIFT Belgium was/is passing loads of info on financial transactions to the US (again).
The US on the other has one thing going for it: constitutional protections, and associated with that, pretty good transparency. Whenever there's a new law project that might touch constitutional protections, there's usually some people that will notice, and there's quite a bit more public debate about it. To the point that Europeans probably know more about privacy-related laws in the US than in their own country.
I don't know about the cities in the 'States where it was implemented, but in Vancouver, BC, after a short period (less than 6 months) where business declined, patronage of bars and restaurants actually increased to higher than original levels. This is because the majority of people (~80%) in Vancouver don't smoke, and a lot of people were avoiding these places because of all the smoke in the air. I have to say, it's a real pleasure to have a beer in a pub and not go home smelling like an ashtray.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
And that is why you're one of the countries in the world with the highest percentage of your population in prison, surpassing many oppressive dictatorships. Despite that you still have some of the highest crime rates in the world too...
Doesn't look like it's working too well.