ID Tech May Mean an End to Anonymous Drinking

Anonymous Howard writes "If you visit a lot of bars and restaurants, you've likely crossed paths with driver's license scanners — machines that supposedly verify that your license is valid. In actuality, many of these scanners are designed to record your license information in addition to verifying them, and those that authenticate against a remote database are creating a record of when and where you buy alcohol. Not only that, but they're not even particularly effective — the bar code on your license uses an open, documented standard and can be rewritten to change your age or picture. Collecting our driver's license information is one thing, but collecting data about our personal drinking habits is not only a violation of, according to the ACLU representative quoted in the article, privacy and civil liberties, but this 'drinking record' could also create problems for people in civil and criminal lawsuits as proof of alcohol purchases in DUI cases or evidence of alcoholism in divorce lawsuits."

Comments

Target for Some Civil Disobedience

[hardburn]

I'm of legal drinking age already and I haven't yet seen one of these machines in my area. But if I ever do, I'd like to have a false bar graph taped on the back of my license. Who will be the first to make a web site to generate these at will? And how long until that web site is labeled a terrorist act?

That's why I only drink at seedy bars

[p5linux]

Don't go to those 'high tech' places. Go to the real gin joint down the street. Besides once you are a regular at a place they don't card you. I went to a place that rhymes with Drasy Conky on rte 110 in amityville, NY that had one of those machines. Next thing I know I'm getting all these advertisments for night clubs and bars sent to my home. Then my wife starts asking me all these questions about where I'm going. not cool.

Re:DUI?

[carpe_noctem]

I'm an American expat living in Germany. One of the things that has been interesting to me here is the difference of how prohibited goods like alcohol and cigarettes are treated in terms of minors.

I must say, I always get screwed when I come back to America to visit and try to go to a bar or buy beer, because I have completely gotten used to not having to bring an ID with me, even though I am clearly over 18/21. The annoyance of this, and the fact that the establishments are only enforcing the rules out of fear that I'm an undercover cop, add to the ridiculousness of the rules.

In Germany, you only have to be 16 to buy alcohol. There is talk of raising this (and the cigarette age) up to 18, but frankly, it won't make much of a difference given the easy access to either substance. The really [i]nice[/i] thing about this is that you are therefore of drinking age before you are able to drive. Thus, by the time that kids learn how to drive, they've already learned how to hold their liquor, and are less likely to make a stupid mistake like getting behind the wheel.

I used to live in Indiana for five years, where the drinking age is of course 21. The number of drunk driving accidents I witnessed or heard about via people that caused them was substantially higher than in a place where alcohol is proudly sold every day and hour of the week (if you know where to get it), at gas stations (heh), movie theaters (which really rocks btw), and supermarkets (and none of that 3.2% crap, either). There is an obvious conclusion to all of this -- people like to drink, and they're going to do it anyways, includng kids. It's better to create an atmosphere where people learn how to handle this responsibility, and are encouraged to enjoy it without risking the lives of others.