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Drivers License Swipes Raise Privacy Concerns
Clubs in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere are requiring patrons to give up their drivers licenses for a swipe through a card reader. Some bars do this too. The card reader displays their birth date and the establishments let it be assumed that the only purpose of the swipe is to check the customer's age. They rarely if ever disclose that the personal data stored on the license — the customer's name, address, license number, perhaps even height, weight, and eye color — go into a database and are retained, perhaps indefinitely. While a federal law forbids selling or sharing data from drivers licenses, there is no prohibition against collecting it. A few states have enacted such prohibitions — New Hampshire, Texas, and Nebraska. Privacy advocates warn that such personal data, once in a database, is bound to be misused. From the article: "'I don't see no problem,' said [a club-goer], 22. 'That happens every day on the Internet. Any hacker can get the information anyway.' [A Web media executive] said such reactions aren't surprising from a generation accustomed to sharing personal information on Web sites such as Facebook.com and Myspace.com. 'The kids don't care,' [he] said, 'because only old people like you and me suffer from the illusion of privacy these days.'"
Good quote, it's funny because it's true. My myspace pages (and I have like 7 or 8 of them) all list my name, address, license number, height, weight, and eye color. I don't understand old people not listing their license on their myspace pages. How are you supposed to know if it's really them?
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I guess if the 22 year old "club-goer" who can barely speak English isn't worried, I shouldn't be either.
That I'm under 21 and use a fake id!
I'm 20 and I care!
"I don't see no problem,' said [a club-goer], 22. 'That happens every day on the Internet."
Were you drunk at the time? What kind of places do you visit on the net to give this information out every day?
The amount of private info required is WAAY out of control. And the people asking for it are WAAY out of line. I heard that reality shows were very bad, so I looked up a sign up sheet Deal or No Deal (think that was it). It was unbelieveable how much info they wanted to just choose stupid suitcases.
in gilhoolies strathpine (brisbane, australia) a couple nights they've required all who enter to surrender their licenses to be put through a machine and to be photographed, the overwhelming majority don't care because if they don't do it they won't be let in.
when it comes down to it theres a choice of, hey, awesome night out at a pub, or go home because of a violation of privacy. I don't see many young people choosing the latter.
I just assumed most pubs were all going down this route, and that it was nothing new.
Don't take your license out with you, or if you are driving, don't show it when asked for ID.
Show your passport or another form of ID (military, etc.) which is recognized elsewhere (e.g., a liquor store).
Establishments which do have license mag-stripe readers will likely not have the equipment for machine-readable passports, but the passport will still provide age verification.
Yeah. Well, they won't care until that information is used against them, either via identity theft or something worse.
Of course, most people won't experience that, but the easier it is to "steal" or otherwise misuse someone's identity, the more often it'll happen, and that means more people will be affected by it. Not that most people will ever figure out the connection. Thanks to the sorry state of education in the U.S., precious few know how to think anymore.
And not that it matters anyway, even if they did figure it out. This is the United States, where corporations and those who run them rule all. The troubles of the lowly consumer underclass matter not at all here.
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that make me hate my generation. I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life saving their asses from this kind of neglect and apathy, and I can only hope that enough of them wake up to help me.
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They rarely if ever disclose that the personal data stored on the license -- the customer's name, address, license number, perhaps even height, weight, and eye color -- go into a database and are retained, perhaps indefinitely.
Seriously, there's no law against providing a replica license with garbage on the magnetic strip to clubs and bars if you're legal age, is there? After all, you're not misrepresenting your credentials, you're preventing identity theft.
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It's just that simple, people.
This isn't just the case at bars and clubs.
About a week ago, I went to purchase Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Because I look under 40, they wouldn't let me buy the game without ID. Fair enough, I pull out my student ID, and offer it.
I was informed that not only would it require offering government-issued photo ID, but it would be necessary to extract all of the information off of it, rather than just enter my age/dob. I refused, and escalated the issue to a manager, who refused to override, and informed the cashier she would be fired on the spot if she hit the "looks over 40" button.
Of course, the manager was unable to provide me with all the information on _her_ license (it's private), but couldn't see why I wouldn't want to provide my name, address, social security number (I got my license before they switched to a numeric system), race, and (potential) disabilities to target, just to buy a video game.
Walking over to Wal-Mart, I paid cash. The computer asked them to check (not swipe) ID. Cashier saw I was "old enough", hit OK, and I was on my merry way. I found this rather odd, given how "RFID Gung Ho" they seem. Perhaps it's about ruthless efficiency, rather than a need to track people. Or, maybe it's the fact that half the people seem to be illegal immigrants who shop at my local Wal-Mart.
I have already seen reports of using such data to "track" drinkers and their habits. People SHOULD care. MADD and their prohibitionist agenda has already advanced the violating of civil rights to a new high as it is, by wrapping drunk driving in the fabric of a social disease; anyone think they won't take it straight into the realm of "preventative therapy" using this information? The war on drugs/alcohol/alternative lifestyles needs to be outed for what it is: an evangelical war on sin. And its front continues to charge into the mainstream of American living, lead by religious bleeding hearts and hypocritical 60's-era hippy soccer moms.
I genuinely feel bad for the coming generations of Americans and the pseudo-fascist oppression under which they will be burdened in the name of "for the children". No matter my age, I will fully support and understand their inevitable backlash.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Aaah, evolution makes life so simple at times. In my younger days (I'm a ripe old 29 now), if a blood sample would bump me to the front of the line at a hot club in LA, I'd have gladly given it up. Thank goodness, I've matured since then. . . . . hehe, just kidding. I'd still cough up the blood sample. :)
How are you supposed to know if it's really them?
Why do you care?
Really -- why does it matter? Unless you're planning on using MySpace as a dating service, which is a bad idea for any number of reasons, I don't see why it matters who the actual meatspace person that's behind a particular online avatar matters. It's like asking whether the clerk at the Dunkin Donuts counter is a transsexual, or dyes their hair: maybe they do, maybe they don't. Does it really matter? Is the knowledge really necessary in order to interact with them? Clearly not.
I think there is a bit of an obsession with trying to link online identities to real people; we need to realize that the disconnect between avatars and natural people is both intentional and desired. Who cares whether the controlling entity is male or female, or some particularly well-engineered piece of software -- it doesn't matter.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Sadly, this is probably the best attitude to have. With our current models for establishing identity, and our current systems for storing and protecting personal data, the truth is if your information is stored anywhere it might as well be plastered on a billboard. Someone's going to get ahold of it somehow, and it's going to be copied, and copied, and copied until it's everywhere. There's no sign of this changing. Even dramatic advances in things like encryption only close one of the many doors to your data, and as long as a single human has access to that data somehow, it's going to get up and walk away someday, and it will live in the wild forever. Ultimately, if you want to keep this information out of anybody's hands, you need to keep it out of everybody's hands. This just isn't feasible if you don't want to go completely "off the grid" and move into a fallout shelter in Montana (or just find a 3rd world country and disappear). Think how many times you prove your identity to some service (both meatspace and online, they're pretty much the same as far as propagating your data is concerned) in a given day.
If you want to live in a society that has access to the vast databases of knowledge and instant communication ours does, ultimately you need to come to grips with the fact that there's going to be a lot of data about you in those databases, and that this data is going to spread like wildfire. Maybe that means learning to live with no secrets, and people getting comfortable with knowing each others' intimate details rather than just their public facades. Kids seem to be going in this direction already, sharing anything and everything with "friends" they've never met, just because they added them to a list on a website and got a couple pictures in return.
Or maybe we need to completely rethink the concept of identity from the ground up, both online and off, if people truly do value their privacy. We're probably going to have to do it sooner or later due to other technological advances anyway, as is illustrated in so many science fiction books and movies. If we don't kill each other first :)
I suppose it's either one of these choices, or we just smash the grid and go back to banging rocks together :P
Game... blouses.
Maybe there's no law against showing it to clubs (specifically), but there sure are laws against making it in the first place.
Then just bombard your real license with some high-power magnetic fields and you're all set. There's no law that says you can't erase the fucker.
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http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1 164091705151690.xml?starledger?ntop&coll=1\
The other one automtaically prints from the browser which can be annoying for some users, especially those without a printer or a slow machine.
cheers,
ben
http://www.webexperts.co.nz
http://www.webexperts.co.nz
Perhaps that should read, "while a federal law forbids selling or sharing data from drivers licenses for the time being..."
Breakfast served all day!
No.
He lives at his parents' house.
Was it ever that much better? There was no glorious golden age of intellectualism in America, when every boy and girl could generate Euclid's theorems and apply Newton's laws.
I don't know if that was a joke... but I'll bite. Ever since certain states passed laws that say that you must card everyone who looks under 27, 30, 35, or whatever, stores have tried to one up them. It's easier to implement a consistent, if ridiculous, policy than to trust your underlings to correctly judge age.
The reason he should be able to get away with it wrt video games is that there is no legal authority going around busting stores for selling games to underage games, unlike say alcohol or tobacco-containing products.
As a sidenote, I was turned down by a local grocery store the other day because my license had a hole in it, while I was waiting for a new one to come in the mail. The clerk explained: you need a valid photo ID. I explained that the ID was still valid and unexpired despite bureau-jerks at the DMV putting a hole in it and that I had a paper temporary, but that didn't hold water in her mind. I haven't bought beer there since.
I think the blurring of license plat numbers has more to do with financial and monetary rewards. You will sometimes see people's faces blurred in the same ways.
When a movie or show is made, they get a consent form filed by everyone in the scene. This happens before they can air the segment. Sometimes people refuse or they cannot be found. In this case, masking their identity is usually sufficient enough to stop that person from attempting to come back on the production. With cars, there might be hundreds of thousands of car similar but only the plate numbers tell them apart. Also some counties or jurisdictions have a process were you pay the county a set fee and they waive anyone who resides in that area's objections.
The consent basically says you agreed to let them use your image or something identifiable to you and won't come back on them later. Some people in the past have attempted to claim the success of a show was directly related to them walking or driving thru the background or interacting with someone in a particular manor therefore they are entitled to some compensation. I'm not sure if anyone has been successful at these suites or not but the consent or blocking the images seems to alleviate most of them.
But it isn't to stop from identifying the person as much as it is identifying them with the show/movie/program/whatever in order to head off any claims against the show.
Young people tend not to care much about what a government may have on them because they've never had to deal with the threat or actuality of an unfriendly government. When people start getting hauled off the streets and 'disappearing' c/o the state then suddenly that DNA and fingerprints you so willingly handed over, will seem rather more precious.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
These yellow boxes are old hat in California and have been around for at least 10 years. While they check the DL to make sure the mag strip matches the info, they are not storing any info. Why do they do this? They are there to prevent fake and expired ID's. If a DL can pass this yellow box then it is a real DL and not a fake, this is a way for the bars to make sure no underage patrons or patrons without valid ID (expired) are in the house. I have never heard of this data ever being pulled out of the little yellow boxes or even the ability to pull the data. I went to a junior college with a guy that started this company, and I have seen them very often in the past 10 years in Southern California.
http://www.viage.com/ is the website for the company that makes these devices, as far as I can tell no data is actually being stored on these things at this time. Here is the link for the unit that is being addressed in the article. http://216.122.245.42/cav2000.htm
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Strangely, I would feel no confidence in the accuracy of this ID. Wonder why...
Sorry, but I live the lifestyle, and even I think intoxicated driving is fucking stupid. It's not for the children, it's common sense. Even at ones most selfish, it's still retarded - if you get pigged, or worse, end up killing somebody, then that's going to put the kaibosh on living that lifestyle. Self preservation, people, self preservation - does a cab home really cost that much?
I received a call from our local ILEC trying to sell me a better deal than I currently had. It sounded ok, so I decided I'd go for it - until the rep told me that he had to connect me with a third-party verification service. He said they would only ask about three fairly general questions, and that would be it. As soon as they asked for my birthday, I terminated the call.
Also, people should know that companies selling card readers often list, as a *feature* the ability to capture information and use it later - for mailing lists, sale to other businesses, whatever. It's probably safe to *assume* that anyone swiping your license will retain and use the information long after your visit.
Indeed it does: the market offered a choice. Not, in all likelihood, because of the invisible hand of competition, but simply because Wal-Mart has not chosen to use monetize (nasty word) customer information like that.
On the other hand, the profit motive is probably what encouraged the other shop to insist on the information in the first place. This story seems to have captured the ugliness of the market right along with its beauty.
A club in Ontario swiped my license for 'verification'.
My next birthday, I got a cute little letter at my home inviting me to celerbate at their club. Needless to say, I don't let people swipe/scan my ID anymore.
Thankfully, Canada's PIPEDA privacy law now makes it illegal for them to deny providing you a service because you didn't provide personal information unrelated to the essential requirements for the service.
A man walks up to the barkeep, "I'm looking for a man, goes by the name of Wilson. "Seen him come around here, maybe you've heard of him?"
The barkeep grumbles back, "Maybe, let me check my Drivers License Scanner Database". The barkeep then prints out a page of the aforementioned license information and gets proper compensation from the stranger.
Not exactly how it usually goes down in the movies, but if this keeps up then maybe in the near future movies will look a little more like this.
the customer's name, address, license number, perhaps even height, weight, and eye color -- go into a database and are retained, perhaps indefinitely. While a federal law forbids selling or sharing data from drivers licenses, there is no prohibition against collecting it.
On the surface, I don't really care if my local pub has my stats. At worst, I'll get an advertisement in the post for free pool on Thursday night. However, going deeper, who is looking at this data, and why? If I go to the topless pub twice a month, are the police going to use this data to profile me as a pervert. Can I expect this data to be used to obtain a warrant to confiscate my computers. Will the police attempt to blackmail me by threating to tell my wife how often I visit the pub? Will my kids be taken away when they find the pictures I took of my wife, despite the files being locked away from the kids?
I can understand the need to keep minors out of the pub. However, they need to maintain and/or create a method that protects my privacy.
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This sentence immediately brought to mind this article, We're all big babies which was listed at Aldaily not long ago, a second-class screed which is true enough nonetheless. We're such big babies that we can't postpone our gratification long enough to say no to any request no matter how intrusive. This sentiment has almost entered the food supply, as we see from the sentence above.
Clubs are not requiring patrons to give up their drivers licenses. That would be illegal. Clubs are requiring patrons to give up their drivers licenses as a condition of entry which was left unstated as if perhaps impossible. Big difference. The prospective patron, one who is not afflicted with the prevailing spirit of cultural infantilism, can say "not in this lifetime", turn around, and leave.
The same applies to DRM-afflicted media. Rights or gratification. Adult or baby. Choose.
The amount of private info required is WAAY out of control. And the people asking for it are WAAY out of line.
There are two sides to every story. Bars want to swipe your card so they don't get fined for serving to underage kids. By having that data, they have a leg to stand on if/when the kid gets busted.
Of course, legislation is totally not the answer. If you don't want to swipe your license at a bar, go to another one.
IMHO, this is exactly the same as the smoking ban. If you don't want to be around smokers in a bar, go to another one.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I have been to a number of bars on Long Island since turning 21 a year ago. I started receiving flyers and coupons from these places and realized they used my info scanned from my drivers license. The next time I went to one of these places I could see the PC the scanner was hooked up to and could see the names, addresses, and birthdays of everyone that was being scanned. It just didn't seem right...
Title 18 USC, Section 701 is what prevents you from copying your military ID, not the patriot act. See the text of the law yourself...
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