Thursday, May 30, 2019

Swipping IDs can be dangerous :: essays research papers

ABOUT 10,000 people a week go to The Rack, a bar in Boston favored by sports stars, including members of the New England Patriots. One by one, they hand over their drivers licenses to a doorman, who swipes them through a sleek depressed machine. If a license is valid and its holder is over 21, a red light blinks and the patron is waved through.But most of the customers are not cognisant that it also pulls up the name, address, birth date and other personal details from a data strip on the back of the license. Even height, eye semblance and sometimes Social Security number are registered."You swipe the license, and all of a sudden someones whole life as we know it pops up in front of you," said Paul Barclay, the bars owner. "Its almost voyeuristic."Mr. Barclay bought the machine to keep out underage drinkers who use fake IDs. But he soon found that he could build a database of personal information, providing an intimate perspective on his clientele that can be use ful in marketing. "Its not just an ID check," he said. "Its a tool."Now, for any given night or hour, he can break down his clientele by sex, age, ZIP code or other characteristics. If he wanted to, he could find out how many blond women named Karen over 5 feet 2 inches came in over a weekend, or how many of his customers do the middle initial M. More practically, he can build mailing lists based on all that data and keep track of who comes back. Bar codes and other tracking mechanisms have become one of the most powerful forces in automating and analyzing product inventory and sales over the last three decades. Now, in a trend that alarms privacy advocates, the approach is being applied to people through the simple drivers license, carried by more than 90 percent of American adults. Al subscribe toy, about 40 states issue drivers licenses with bar codes or magnetic stripes that carry standardized data, and most of the others plan to issue them within the next few years.Scanners that can read the licenses are slowly proliferating across the country. So far the machines have been most popular with bars and convenience stores, which use them to thwart underage purchasers of alcohol and cigarettes.In response to the terrorist attacks last year, scanners are now also being installed as security devices in airports, hospitals and government buildings.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.