A fingerprint for your beer? Get fucked!

[Gob]

THOUSANDS of clubbers and pub patrons are being forced to submit to fingerprint and photographic scans to enter popular venues, seemingly unaware of the ramifications of handing over their identity.

Biometric scanners, once the domain of James Bond movies, are flooding the pub market as the fix-all solution to violence and antisocial behaviour. The pubs are exerting more power than the police or airport security by demanding photos, fingerprints and ID. Police can only do it if they suspect someone of committing a crime and they must destroy the data if the person is not charged or found not guilty.

Yet one company boasts that the sensitive information collected about patrons can be kept for years and shared with other venues in the country - in what appears to be a breach of privacy laws.
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There are no official checks and balances on how the data is collected, stored, used or shared. Federal Privacy Commissioner Tim Pilgrim has warned he does not have the power to audit the systems and the lack of regulation has even industry players calling for tighter controls.

NSW premises using the systems include the Australian Brewery, Lone Pine Tavern, Phriction Night Club and the Mean Fiddler in Sydney's west; Home Nightclub, the Coogee Bay Hotel; Woy Woy Leagues Club, Woodport Inn and Munmorah United Bowling Club on the central coast; Fotheringhams Hotel in Taree; and Wollongong's Palm Court Hotel.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... 1a9zr.html

[Scooter]

Not sure how Australian privacy law works. Here they would be violating all sorts of provisions by operating they way they claim to be, because privacy legislation regulates private entities as well as public.

That being said, if a club told me I needed to submit a fingerprint to get in, I would tell them to get stuffed.

[Jarlaxle]

Hmm...wonder what they do for people who the scanners WON'T read their prints. My uncle & my grandmother both fit that category...my grandmother's prints are essentially worn off, my uncle has the scarred & heavily-callused hands of a truck mechanic & pistol shooter. An electronic print scanner flat-out won't read his prints most of the time.

[Big RR]

Disney world has been doing the same thing for years, checking fingerprints or some sort of biometric data of the index finger on a person presenting a multi day pass, and then scanning each time to make sure only that person uses it for other days. IMHO it's not worth it,and I'd never give up that information to the mouse (I guess the alternative is to buy single day tickets which are more expensive), but it's pretty amazing how many people would, and do, every day. As someone who organized people to refuse to be fingerprinted by the campus cops after a robbery in my dorm in college (it was eventually solved anyway), I just don't understand it.

[Guinevere]

Well don't ever try to work for the feds, or take the Maryland bar exam (which takes a thumb print, as I recall).

[oldr_n_wsr]

Well don't ever try to work for the feds, or take the Maryland bar exam (which takes a thumb print, as I recall).

Do they serve beer?

[Rick]

Here in the US chances are pretty great that one's finger print is already on file.

I have been told ANYTIME someone is fingerprinted (whatever the reason) a copy is held by the FBI. Some of you lawyers may be able to shed better light on this.

Having been in the military I know mine are...

[Big RR]

I can't say for certain, Keld, but I think you are right if the prints are sent to the FBI (which they usually are in many background checks).

But letting a private entity have your prints for no real reason seems to be just a bad idea.

[Rick]

Here they make you show your Drivers License.

They could start scanning the strip on the back like they do at Wally World...

[dales]

I've been finger-printed a number of times with the scans being sent to the Dept. of Justice.

Having been in the education field for a number of years, I just got used to it.

No beer, though.

[Jarlaxle]

Well don't ever try to work for the feds, or take the Maryland bar exam (which takes a thumb print, as I recall).

He has ben printed many times (he was in the Army, and was printed several times for CCW permits), but the electronic print scanners usually don't work on him. The last set of prints took three tries.

[loCAtek]

'Cha, try cashing a check these days.

[Jarlaxle]

You still use checks?!?!

[loCAtek]

...or cash, goes with the poverty level.