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Pay Dirt in Scanned Driver's Licenses 594

Posted by michael from the sutter's-mill dept.
The New York Times has a good article explaining why handing over your national ID card to be scanned may not be such a good idea.
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Pay Dirt in Scanned Driver's Licenses More

Pay Dirt in Scanned Driver's Licenses

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  • No License? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:03PM (#3201428)
    What happens if you don't have a driving license?

    Is it some kind of 'drivers only' club?

    • Re:No License? (Score:2, Informative)

      by (trb001) ( 224998 )
      When I worked at a video store we ran into this problem occasionally...people would complain that they didn't have a driver's license because they didn't drive anywhere. Our answer was pretty simple: go get an id card. You can get an id card that looks exactly like a driver's license (at least in Virginia) except instead of 'Driver's License' at the top it says 'State Id' or something to that effect. I would imagine that since it's issued by the state it will have the same magnetic strip.

      Either way, I don't think it's asking too much to have a state issued id if you're over 21.

      --trb

      • Re:No License? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by JoeBuck ( 7947 )

        I know of some cases where US bars refused to let foreign tourists enter, even with a passport, because the stupid bouncers don't know what passports are and insist on a US state driver's license.

        • Re:No License? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Brownstar ( 139242 )
          Hate to break it to you, but the US isn't the only country that has idiot bouncers who won't let you in with out their countries form of ID.

          A bunch of friends and I went to Canada and were refused entry into a few bars because we didn't have Canadian Drivers licenses. I did have a passport and they still refused me. Worse thing about it is we were in our mid to late twenties, and well over their drinking age.

          • Re:No License? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by parliboy ( 233658 )
            I'm a non-driver who was on a trip to Chicago -- tried to get into the Excalibur. The bouncer actually had a nice thick book, about 100 pages, with details on what all of these different licenses and ID's look like. He thumbed to Louisiana, looked over my ID, and waved me in. As for my friend who didn't have a collared shirt... Anyway, how hard is it for these knuckleheads to get something like this?

        • Re:No License? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Delirium Tremens ( 214596 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:35PM (#3201737) Journal
          Ah, it happened to me once, but the other way around. I was at a grocery store in California buying beer. The cashier asks for my ID and I show her my U.S. Georgia driver license. She then tells me that she is sorry but she is not allowed to sell alcohol to out-of-State resident.
          WTF?
          I eventually walked out of there with the beer because I happened to also have my Belgian passport with me. That was ok.
          Go figure. It has probably to do with rural superstition or something. Don't deprive Belgians of their beers!
          Could get dangerous. The world might stop spinning . An asteroid might hit the Earth.
          • You should try to do anything with an Arizona driving license.
            Arizona licenses are good for 40 years (yup, 40). If you go to California, they look at you really funny, as California driving licenses are good for only a few.

          • Re:No License? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by jCaT ( 1320 )
            Passports, regardless of what country they are from, hold to a pretty good convention as to where stuff is and what it's supposed to look like. Drivers licenses on the other hand aren't that consistent. In the 8 years that I've had a drivers license, california has gone through *4* different designs, and there's one older design than that. If we consider that there is still part of the population with this design, that's 5 different possible license designs for this STATE.

            Not to mention that certain states have the most god awful looking drivers licenses... so easy to create fakes it's not even funny. Hell, my roommate in college printed out a florida drivers license on his inkjet printer, got a picture at kinko's, and used it for THREE YEARS before a bouncer took it away.
    • What happens if you don't have a driving license?

      Unfortunately, in the U.S. there's a very strong assumption that everyone over 16 drives (because it's *almost* true). However, (almost?) every state has a state *ID* card that is not a drivers license, but is entered in the drivers license DB and managed by the same division of the state and treated by everone just like a DL, except for the actual driving part of life.

      Having one is legally optional, but you can't cash a check almost anywhere without "proper ID", even at your own bank, and some places are now requiring it for credit card transactions, so almost everybody except the institutionalized/homeless have either a state-issued driver's license or ID card.

      In other words, "driver's license" in the U.S. is shorthand for "driver's license or other state-issued ID".

    • Some state have a Non-Drivers ID card. I think those would have the same information.
      What scares me about this is that Identification Theft (theft of you SSN and stuff to create a lot trouble on your record by someone else) just became a lot easier. Is there any regulation around the selling of these readers? All you need is one bad club owner and you id is stolen.
    • I was with a friend one night when he was turned away from a club in Boston. He had no driver's license - but he *did* have a valid Mass. state ID. I guess only drivers are allowed to drink.

  • My drinking habits... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <<remove_spam>jus ... m minus math_god> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:05PM (#3201449) Homepage
    are my own. Any bar that is scanning my ID and keeping a record or pulling other data is not getting my business. Then again, when I buy beer at the grocery store and put it on my debit card, it is doing the same thing.

    We (the collective us) have been rushing at a breakneck speed down the tunnel of complete mediation. Everything about us will be known. Except perhaps to ourselves.

    Wow, that was pretty deep for this early in the morning...
    • My drinking habits...are my own. Any bar that is scanning my ID and keeping a record or pulling other data is not getting my business. Then again, when I buy beer at the grocery store and put it on my debit card, it is doing the same thing.

      Not in the state of Utah. Out here bars are 'Private Clubs for Members'. They have to maintain a membership roster, and keep records of who visits the club. You have to provide an ID to get in, not to prove you're of age, but for record-keeping.

      • Re:My drinking habits... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cabbey ( 8697 )
        Not in the state of Utah. Out here bars are 'Private Clubs for Members'. They have to maintain a membership roster, and keep records of who visits the club. You have to provide an ID to get in, not to prove you're of age, but for record-keeping.

        That's what you get when you let a church run your state.

    • Grocery stores are doing this now too. They have these "savings cards" that they give to you, if you fill out a form that asks for all kinds of information. They mark up the prices on everything, for example, a 2 liter of coke or pepsi is $3.00, but with the "shoppers card" you can buy it for $1.00, which is the original price. Meanwhile, when you swipe your card at the checkout, they track your purchasing habits. So if the feds want to know who is buying large amounts of cheez whiz they know where to go...

      That's why I used an alias for mine, I can get the "normal" prices and the gov doesn't have to know about my M&M addiction.

      • That's why I used an alias for mine, I can get the "normal" prices and the gov doesn't have to know about my M&M addiction

        Do you always pay in cash? Otherwise with a credit/debit card or check, its easy to associate your real name with your card.
      • I think this is the final evidence that the libertarians have had it wrong for decades. They're always bugging out about the government this, government that. Turns out the CIA was uploading cookies [guardian.co.uk] and even they didn't know about it, for Christ's sake. I've worked in government, and I'm not going out on a limb when I say that the government is too damn incompetent to get anything useful out of tracking our M&M consumption habits, as it were.

        It's the private sector that poses real risks to privacy. Uncle Sam is not about to track your damned underwear size so they can focus-group test when the ideal time to offer you a rebate on the 10-48 diet drink.
        • I've worked in government, and I'm not going out on a limb when I say that the government is too damn incompetent to get anything useful out of tracking our M&M consumption habits, as it were.

          Well, the private sector is a bigger worry, but Kenneth Starr used Monica Lewinsky's shopping habits on her credit card to see where she was at any point on a given day via a court order, which is a level of insidiousness that isn't given to the private secotr, sans maybe the merger giants like AOL/Time Warner.
      • Every few times I'm at the grocery store I turn to the person behind me in line and offer to trade savings cards. Most often, the appeal of fucking with their big database of who buys what puts a smile on their face and then we trade cards. so when i buy depends, treet lunch meat, and 6 pounds of radishes, they may be recording it, but the data is of no value.
  • Enter with username/password nospam.

  • identity theft versus tracking (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:06PM (#3201459)
    I would be more concerned if there is enough info on the stripe to impersonate someone and drain their finances. As for tracking ones movements, I feel that that will become inevitable through a multitude of security devices. That becomes like surfing the net- white noise save all for the most determined voyeurs.

  • No need to register! (Score:2, Informative)

    by TheMatt ( 541854 )
    Here is Yahoo!'s coverage: Finding Pay Dirt in Scannable Driver's License [yahoo.com]
  • Kinda says it all, don't it?

    Forget the personals, now stalkers and sex-deprived rejects alike can flip through pretty damned detailed records to find that special someone.

  • Worst for CDL/Chauffeur's license holders (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TrollMan 5000 ( 454685 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:09PM (#3201501)
    Some of the information collected such as eye color, height and such doesn't bother me to compile, since that information is publicly available.

    However, I hold a chauffeur's license. It requires that I furnish my Social Security number, which should not be publicly available.

    I feel I should not have to change my license (or profession, if I still was doing such) just to protect my privacy.
    • Are you allowed to carry two licenses? One a standard DL and one your chauffeur's license?
    • It is a federal crime to _require _ your SSN for any reason other than social security.

      In this case, they probably wanted your normal drivers license number. Most states default this to your SSN, but because of said statute you can balk and have it be some other random number.

      Banks and other private institutions get around this by saying that thier services are optional, not mandatory. Therefore you are offering your SSN when you want their services.

    • However, I hold a chauffeur's license. It requires that I furnish my Social Security number, which should not be publicly available.

      Hell, I live in New Jersey. Everyone is required to furnish their SSN to get a driver's license. But my take on SSNs is that they should be publicly available. Publish them in the phone book next to people's names and addresses. That is how you stop identity theft.

  • The thing is that this sort of thing won't stop without a bunch of support. I mean if I walk up to a bar and refuse to have them scan my license (nj licenses didn't have mag-tapes 4 years ago, cali ones do) they'll just tell me to find another bar. If a quarter of their customers refuse, they'll complain to whomever is making them check the cards.

    Plus they probably don't care about the mag-tape on the licenses... I remember reading a story about innovative people re-writting magtapes for the train, so the tapes said they had 9999 rides remaining. How long until someone modifies their drivers license to tell the reader their (fake) info?

  • Same All Over (Score:2, Interesting)

    by guamman ( 527778 )
    I can certain see how allowing the scan of your personal ID card is a bad idea. Even organizations that wouldn't seem malignant can be up to no good. The university [wisc.edu] I currently attend sells our names and personal information to businesses all the time. Occasionally we even receive mass advertisement using the student body mailing list. I'd say that is a clear perversion of the university's email system. Last year I received three advertisements urging me to rent a hot tub for my graduation party and I'm not even graduating. Overall, the less information you have to release the better.

  • Defacto Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rev_icon ( 97468 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:10PM (#3201515) Homepage
    One of the points the proponents of these scanning machines said in the article that these machines don't violate privacy because they're just reading out the same information that is on the front of the drivers license. Of course, technically this is true, and it is just the same as if someone was photocopying every license that is shown at the door, but it's also alot different.

    Think about this... if you were walking in the park with someone, and you were talking about your girlfriend and some new car that she just bought, and someone walks by and happens to overhear you talking about this, it's not an invasion of privacy. You're in the park, it's a public place. Now think of the same situation, but someone is following you around with a microphone recording everything you say. Technically it's still not an invasion of privacy because you're in a public place, and because you're saying it in public, it's public information, but it's still a Completely Different thing.

    -Matt
    Free Your Mind [digitalmeca.com]

    • You're totally right. I think people make the mistake of thinking of privacy as an all-or-nothing, absolute kind of thing, like freedom of speech. I have the absolute right to say whatever I want (well, almost...but that's how we like to think of it.) But using publicly available information any member of the public, given infinite time and resources, can probably figure out anything they want to figure out about me.

      Does that mean I have no privacy? If privacy is all or nothing, yes. But instead we might think of the word "privacy" as refering to the amount of difficulty that people who aren't supposed have information about me have in getting said information about me.

      Thinking of it that way, developments like this clearly reduce the privacy that we have, simply because they increase the convenience of accessing what is technically public information.

    • And another thing (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drew_kime ( 303965 )
      Now think of the same situation, but someone is following you around with a microphone recording everything you say.

      Or let's stick with out doorman checking your ID. Suppose when he did, he took out a book and started writing down everything on it. How many people would demand their ID back and complain to managment that it was none of the doorman's damn business?

      • How many people would demand their ID back and complain to managment that it was none of the doorman's damn business?

        Very few.

      • Or let's stick with out doorman checking your ID. Suppose when he did, he took out a book and started writing down everything on it. How many people would demand their ID back and complain to managment that it was none of the doorman's damn business
        As I mentioned elsewhere [slashdot.org], I would. I don't care how hot the chicks inside are, how cheap the beer is, how great the music is, or how big the bouncers are, I'd need a damn good reason to let someone take down all my personal information.

        And what would I do? First, I'd rip my DL back, then I'd ask to see the manager for an explaination. If that explaination didn't give a good reason for needing that info, just to be an ass, I'd probably ask to see all of the bar employee's DL's, then I'd walk out (bitching about the neo-Nazi management), write a letter to the editor of the local paper, and call my government represetatives at all levels (city, county, state, and federal.) I would certainly complain to whoever approves their liquor license.

        For Christ's sake, all I want to do is give the bar my money for some fermented barley. If one bar won't do that without invading my privacy, I'll go to one that won't. I'm still the customer in this situation, someone can make money by making me happy.

        -sk

    • Re:Defacto Privacy (Score:4, Funny)

      by electroniceric ( 468976 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @03:02PM (#3202585)
      Well put.

      The irony is that what causes the info-tracking technology to cross the line between helpful and invasive is the efforts of clever software engineers in making information impossible easy to store and follow.

      The crux of your analogy is following people around. But what if you could record every conversation within a mile as easily as overhearing it? Even people with the most innoccuous intentions could run roughshod over privacy. That seems to me to be exactly what this bar owner is saying: "Well, I bought this doodad to reduce the hassles that go along with checking IDs properly (or checking them improperly and get browbeaten by local liquor control boards), but as long as it says click here to build Customer-Experience Enhancement Profiles, I figure I'll give this a shot." And then, "Wow, this is really useful to me. I can make my bar do much better business."

      Information seems more and more to want to be free. The problem is setting it free without letting run around without its pants on.

  • Remembering (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WndrBr3d ( 219963 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:11PM (#3201518) Homepage Journal
    I remember a few years back there was this huge scandal in Canada where people had devised a Palm Pilot add on which could act as a magnetic strip reader.

    You could swipe any card and it would extract the information from the magnetic strip and store it in a database.

    Rescently we've been working with Card readers here at my company and let me tell you, there is some interesting information on those cards.

    Basically, there's two 'tracks' of data. ASCII data of course. I think the limit is 64 Characters per track. It was fun to to go swiping cards to see what information was stored on them. Student IDs, Drivers Liscences, Credit Cards, Health Cards, Hotel Room Keys and even some other strips worked (FastPass anyone ?).

    The down side is these readers can cost upwards of $300 to $500 and the Driver Software leaves -little- to be desired (VB anyone ?), but then again, it's OEM hardware so we were lucky to even get software support.
  • Okay, I see stories like this on the news all the times, supposedly showing how our personal private lives are being invaded. Bunk!

    If you don't want to reveal personal info, don't go into that club! I am sure that there are plenty of gin mills in Gotham that won't mind if you're anonymous. Now, the club should let you know that it has access to, and may be storing your personal information, but its like, jeesh guys, if they are scanning your drivers license on the way in, you might have an idea that the device doing this is going to capture data.

    If you want to remain anonymous you can. Many bars still take cash, and are happy just glancing at your ID. Better yet, if you are an old fart like me, you don't ever get carded any more, so its easy for to remain anonymous. In fact, my life is so hopelessly boring that so far, no one has expressed any interest in tracking my actions. Just the other day in fact, the lady at the Safeway looked at my member card and said "no thanks." How depressing.
    • If you don't want to reveal personal info, don't go into that club! I am sure that there are plenty of gin mills in Gotham that won't mind if you're anonymous.

      Sure, that works now -- but as the penalties for getting caught with an underage drinker increase, more and more bars are going to turn to systems which are more failsafe than just the human eye...like this one. It's important to point out where this system fails _now_ before everyone else adopts it...and your choice becomes go out and get scanned, or stay in.

      'Cause I'd be really pissed if my local bar started doing this...the Rack's worth skipping, but I'm not about to sacrifice the rest of the city.


  • If you have a driver's license with a magnetic strip- just rub it over with a strong magnet until its blanked.


    The license is still valid- the mag-strip is only there for "convenience", its whats on the front that counts.


    The difference is that no bouncer/clerk/etc is going to have time te key in all that data, and you return to the gentle ranks of the anonymous dues to the carless oblivion of human short term memory.

    • Amen. The first thing I did when I got my new driver's licence was degauss it.

      That said, I've never encountered a stripe reader anywhere except the grocery store, and then only when I write a paper check. And the grocery store is already "paying" me for my shopping habits. (Which I don't really care about)
    • Except these machines were put in, in the first place, to make getting away with a fake ID much harder. If your card doesn't work, they'll clearly just presume it's a fake unless you're so old that there can't be any question. Thus, you'll not be admitted entry. Now this may not ultimately hold up in the courts when there might be legitimate privacy concerns here, but that doesn't change your lot in the short term.

  • From the nation who... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:12PM (#3201527)

    • pays their phone bills with credit cards
    • buys food with credit cards
    • buys gas with credit card
    • buys bus/train/airplane tickets with credit cards

    You see the pattern? What's an ID card going to do? All your purchasing data and aggregate information already belong to some shady corporation.

    If you don't trust your government, then fine. Why do you trust the corporations then?

    • Re:From the nation who... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by daoine ( 123140 ) <moruadh1013&yahoo,com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:53PM (#3201942)
      The interesting thing is that it's a choice to purchase things with credit/debit cards. Granted, I'll generally have a paper trail with my bills, but if I'm in the supermarket or the drugstore buying stuff I don't want the world to know I have - I skip the little saver card thing and I pay cash.

      The reason this is a little sketchy (and maybe different) is that I _don't_ know where scanned license information is going.

      I know exactly what happens to my information when I buy something on a credit/debit card with a little saver thing(it gets sold to anyone who might give a rats ass) and I can judge accordingly.

      But the article pointed out itself -- that the information for that particular system was stored locally. It's a little scarier (maybe it's just a girl thing) to think that the sketchy bartender now has access to stuff without my noticing. All he's gotta do now is remember my name, instead of name, address, and everything else on my license.

      /mildly paranoid

  • back and forth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:12PM (#3201530) Homepage Journal
    "It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of Intelli- Check, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."

    And people are going to hate it for the same reason that the RIAA and MPAA hate computers--because collecting data slowly by hand is one thing, but the speed with which you can collect a huge amount of data with a computer is another. Ripping an MP3 is not much different from taping a song for all practical purposes, but the fact that it's digitized and compressed means it's easy to share and copy. Having an attendant furiously writing down names is one thing, getitng it all in a <1 second DL swipe is another.

    Same thing with automated face recognition-- putting cops everywhere with mug books is one thing, cameras hooked up to recognition software is quite another.

  • DMV used to sell driver's licence info (Score:3, Informative)

    by phallen ( 145919 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:13PM (#3201546) Homepage
    Most likely old news to many here but state Department of Moter Vehicles used to, as a general practice, sell personal information collected from people's driver's licences to marketing organizations. That was pretty lame, as the DMV has a monopoly on driver's licences, of course.

    I say used to [wired.com], as the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled it to be wrong in early 2000.

    • I'm fucking sick of hearing about that crap.

      Don't you people realize that at least 3 different companies already HAVE your info, and are selling it?

      1. Car Dealer
      2. Insurance Company
      3. Bank

      Unless you're all 16 (which sometimes I think), you have a decent car, which you got a loan for, and didn't lie when you filled out 5 copies of the same damn form.

      I'm a Slashdot reader! My privacy is so important, I WANT corporations to make money off my information, instead of the DMV, so when the DMV needs more more money, they can raise taxes..

      Yeah, that's intelligent. Let's remove a form of revenue from a place that MUST exist..

  • <kama ho>
    username: cypherpunks516
    password: cypherpunks
    </kama ho>
  • You don't actually have to register. But there's a trick to it. New York Times will not allow you to link directly to a story from another website.

    Try this:

    1. Click the link http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/technology/circu its/21DRIV.html [nytimes.com] from the main page.

    2. This brings you to the redirect URL: http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.n ytimes.com/2002/03/21/technology/circuits/21DRIV.h tml

    3. Replace the first "www" with the word "college" (or the word "archive").

    So it now looks like:

    http://college.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://w ww.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/technology/circuits/21DR IV.html

    Then go to that page. Voila, no registration required.

  • But companies that market the scanning technology argue that it poses no threat to privacy.

    Well of course they would say that. Could you imagine a company saying something like "Our new product is the biggest threat to privacy since the phone tap". Of course, the way marketing works, they would probably be able to convince people that it's something they need anyways.

  • Rebecca Shaeffer and the DPPA (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheMatt ( 541854 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:16PM (#3201577) Homepage Journal
    Here's a link [privacilla.org] about the DPPA (The Drivers Privacy Protection Act) which is referenced to in the article. For a wee bit of the history, click here [privacilla.org].
    --

  • Practical Problems (Score:3, Funny)

    by SomethingOrOther ( 521702 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:17PM (#3201581) Homepage

    Okay, privacy issues asside (sweeping statement I know... stay with me :-)

    I'm from the UK and look reasonalbly young.
    Does this meen when I visit the US I will have problems buying drink and ciggerettes because I dont have a US driving licence with a bar-code?

    Considering the average neandothol doorman will rely so heavily on such a mancine, alternative ways of proving your age (NOT YOUR ID!!!) may no longer be accepted

    If I went to a pub here in the UK and someone asked to scan my driving licence I'd tell then to fuck off!
    Prove that I am 18/21 yes.... Find out how many speeding tickets I have... No

  • The Rack isn't exactly known for its privacy... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:17PM (#3201582)
    If you want to see more about the place the article was talking about, you have options like watching [livewave.com]
    all the customers who are in there. You can even nicely zoom in and pan and tilt the camera if you want. Take one guess what the people running the cam are checking out most nights...

    If you want to tell them what you think about them harvesting information of customers without their knowledge or permission (an act about on par with spamming in my opinion), you can find even more information [therackboston.com] about them.

  • Electronic Privacy Information Center [epic.org]

    "A people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." - James Madison
    .
  • On the one hand, as someone has already suggested, you could try to use a magnet to erase/garble the information. On the other hand, at least in TX, the coercivity (or whatever the magnetic energy required to change it is) for what they use on the license strips is rumored to be so high that to erase it, it would have to be at least quasi-deliberate.

    And there's always the rumor that if you've managed to mangle the info on your license's strip, it would have to have been a deliberate act, due to the effort involved, so it could get you some sort of "defacing ID" charge if caught.

    All rumors and innuendo. Waiting for a TX person who knows to chime in to confirm or refute.

  • Here's why it's so nefarious... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Squirrel Killer ( 23450 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:21PM (#3201614)
    From the story:
    "It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of Intelli- Check, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."
    If I went to a bar that tried to photocopy my driver's license, I'd damn sure turn around and go elsewhere. By making the privacy invasion so subtle, they've muted reasonable objections.

    -sk

    • Re:Here's why it's so nefarious... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jordy ( 440 ) <jordan&snocap,com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:59PM (#3202002) Homepage
      The debate against National ID cards still confuses me. It seems to me that if they built a national ID card where everything was contained electronically and there was little to no information on the front, you could do *more* to protect privacy than the current standard of relying on driver's licenses.

      The real trick would be developing a method whereby only the information you want to give out is accessible.

      My first thought would be to encrypt each peice of information with a different key, but then the government would need to distribute private keys to each business which takes the control out of your hands. On the other hand, if done correctly, they could give access to a liquor store to only be able to decrypt a photograph and if a person is over 21 or not (not even age.)

      A better solution of course would be a method of allowing each person to control what information a particular vendor retrieves, but practically speaking, is much more difficult than the above solution.

      If the above described card was issued as a national ID card, we'd all be a lot better off. Of course then every club would need a little scanner to read the information instead of being able to just look at the front... but that's not my problem now is it? :)
      • Ok, but why does a National ID card do anyone any good? Just as individuals can forge passports they will be just as able to forge ID cards. In fact, making things electronic just give the potential for individuals to hijack other individuals identities more rapidly.

        It's not just a matter of privacy, but of usefulness. It's sort of like the gun-control argument whereas people argue that making it harder to obtain a gun permit will keep guns away from criminals. Well, hate to burst everyone's bubble, but criminals never got friggin permits to begin with!

        Likewise, a terrorist isn't going to be stopped by a 'National ID' card. If I really thought it would protect the country from terrorists, I would let Doubleclick.com stick a tracking probe up my ass. The fact of the matter is, this is just rheotric that is only gonna to cause more harm and headache for the average Joe.
  • This article points out several issues with using driver's licenses for ID:
    1. They include information that's specific for driving that may be used other identifying features.
    2. Each state has it's own standard. For example, some store social security numbers, other fingerprints, most store address, etc.

    The core failing of this issue is that driver licenses (and social secuirity numbers) were never designed nor intended to provide general identification.

    What is required is a standard that appies to the entire country for what can be used on ID's. One solution is to establish a National ID, administered by the federal government, which would replace the state drivers licenses and social security numbers strictly for providing identification in a secure manner. Another solution would be for the federal goverment to establish guidelines to be followed by the states in establishing IDs.

    The current situation is unacceptable from both a privacy and an identification point of view.

  • What's private and what's not? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:28PM (#3201689) Journal
    I think this raises an interesting question. What information about me is legitimately private, and what isn't?

    The knee-jerk reaction, of course, is to say that everything is private unless I choose to release it. But that approach doesn't work in practice. There are too many instances in which information about me needs to be publicly available. To pick a silly example, it's important that it be public knowledge that somebody lives in my home, because if the building catches on fire I want people to let me know and help me get out.

    So some information really should be explicitly public knowledge, and it's important that everybody accept that, especially privacy advocates. We can then have a reasoned discourse about where to draw that line.

    Think about your phone number. The phone company publishes your name and phone number in their directory unless you pay an additional fee for an unlisted number. This has been the status quo for my entire life-- 30 years-- and certainly much longer. So it's got a pretty good precedent going. So is my phone number private information by default? Not really. Should it be? Hmm... maybe. If I express no preference at all, should the phone company publish my name, address, and phone number or not?

    The other end of the spectrum is information that's clearly private, and protected by law. My medical records and the contents of my communications with my lawyer are explicitly private. If a court wanted to know what my doctor said to me last week, they couldn't ask. It's private.

    Everything else is in the middle. Is my street address private? No, by the phone book argument. What about the number of people who live in my house? Maybe. How about their ages, genders, and sexual preferences? Hmm.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is this: our society seems to accept as a given that we should each have the right to keep stuff private. The slippery slope argument, though often specious at best, implies that the right to keep stuff private must only be abridged when there's no alternative. But everywhere you look there's ambiguity about this principle. Go back to the phone book example; the phone company assumes you want to publish your name, address, and phone number unless you explicitly tell them-- and pay them!-- not to. Likewise, the bar mentioned in the article assumes that it's okay for them to collect demographic information from you.

    Where is the line between stuff that is assumed to be private unless explicitly waived, and stuff that's assumed to be public unless explicitly withheld? Like I said before, in principle the line is all the way over to one side: everything is private unless waived. But in the real world, that line will have to be moved a little bit so that some things are public information by default.

    I don't have any answers. Just questions.

  • The answer to your worries... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pongo000 ( 97357 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:29PM (#3201691)
    ...is a magnet.
  • While I'm not defending the practice, I'm reminded what I felt when two of the three big chain grocery stores went to a frequent user card.

    I went defiantly to the third. NOBODY needs to know when I buy my Milk and Eggs!

    When somebody pointed out that Costco, the Chain I love and frequent, and am frankly a cult member of, does the SAME THING, and has done so for YEARS before the Grocery Stores did it really brought me up short.

    This is unfortunately a sign of the times. And without turning unibomber and living in a shack in Wyoming, there's not really much you can do about it. It's similar to the emissions and seat belt laws in the 70's. TONS of people didn't like it, but now it's commonplace.

    I doubt it's going to turn into the 1984 that the alarmists paint it as, but It's also going to make more than a few people more than a little upset when it's abused. (IT WILL BE ABUSED. And when it does, the public outcry will make it financially unadvisable to abuse it further.)

    • Re:It's already worse than you think. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CoreyG ( 208821 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @02:23PM (#3202238)
      The only real reason grocery stores have food cards is to make more money. They use various combinations of data mining tools and predictive analytics to figure out what people like to buy, who the best(read most profitable) customers are, and who are the cherry pickers(read most costly). Then they market to their best customers and not the cherry pickers. Or they devise promotions to sell a well-selling item with a poor-selling item. Or a well-selling item with a high-profit item. The list goes on and on. The only reason they do it though, is to make money. The only way the analyses are at all accurate is because of the aggregate amount of data they collect. Performing an analysis on 1 person's data would be useless. Most retail-specific applications don't even provide tools to look at specific customers, only categories of customers that satisfy specific criteria. Retailers don't make money by looking at your purchasing habits. They do it by looking at everyone's purchasing habits together. You alone are not valuable to them.
      Now, could all this be abused by selling your information to others? Possibly. Except retailers are most likely making money directly off your information themselves, and prefer to keep it that way. Grocers are usually quite territorial with their shoppers and generally would not risk anyone else getting hold of their customers; they make too much money compared to the amount they'd make by simply selling a list.

  • hypocrisy (Score:4, Funny)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:31PM (#3201708) Journal
    The electronic trails created by scanning driver's licenses are raising concerns among privacy advocates. Standards and scanning, they say, are a dangerous combination that essentially creates a de facto national identity card or internal passport that can be registered in many databases.

    For full access to our site, please complete this simple registration form.

    Does anyone else find that hilarious?

  • Any lawyers out there?

    I'm curious if I can obtain a copyright on my personal information... or perhaps if the hospital where I was born, having produced the initial birth certificate, holds a copyright.

    The mag stripe is digital media.

    That would mean that the scanners fall under the SSSCA, and if that law passes, no one could make a copy of my personal information from my driver's license, right?

  • ...By law, you have the right to not put your Social Security Number on your driver's license.

    I wonder if the SSN gets encoded on the magnetic stripe if you request it not be on the face of the license?

    Then, buried way down at the end is this little gem...
    "It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of IntelliCheck, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."


    Any sane person would point out that the bouncer "could" record the information by photocopying, yes, but he couldn't do so without being detected.

    Also, because one use of the technology (license) would allow overt data collection doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD have the god-given right to collect data surreptitiously with the same technology.

    • Bouncers copying your personal data off IDs. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Nonesuch ( 90847 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @02:07PM (#3202091) Homepage Journal
      sane person would point out that the bouncer "could" record the information by photocopying, yes, but he couldn't do so without being detected.
      Some of the clubs I go to, the bouncer will put your ID on a shelf under a little halogen lamp so he can read the front... at least one place, I noticed that just to one side of the lamp was a little CCD camera focused on the shelf.

      This only reads the front, but rigging a similar shelf arrangement to scan the backside would not be difficult.

      ..By law, you have the right to not put your Social Security Number on your driver's license.

      I wonder if the SSN gets encoded on the magnetic stripe if you request it not be on the face of the license?

      I checked out the 2-D barcode on the back of the Illinois license, and on mine, which does not have the SSN on the front, there is no SSN in the barcode.

      There does not appear to be any magstripe on the new Illinois licenses.

  • If you go out to the bar, then the terrorists have already won.
  • The fine print above my license's stripes says "Information contained in the barcode and magnetic stripe is limited to date of birth, license/ID number and expiration date.

    Still, this article's theme provokes some thoughts:

    What will change in 2004 when it has to be renewed?

    If I could read either stripe, would I find that the privacy statement was inaccurate?

    After all, we've had a Republican governor here for way too many years.....

  • Here, try this: http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html [majcher.com]

    It's a simple HTML/javascripty thing to automatically generate a random NYTimes login every time you want to view a story. Just cut and paste the nytimes.com url you want to view, and hit the button.

    If you could, please try to save the page locally and use it from your server or desktop, to keep the traffic to my server reasonable. Distribute at will.
  • Two recently published polls show that support for a national ID card has decreased. Results from a poll on the February 27 Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]Federal Page showed that public opinion was divided on the issue, with 47% of Americans thinking that national ID will improve interaction with government and business and 44% viewing it as "an invasion of people's civil liberties and privacy." A new survey released on March 12 by Gartner Inc. found that 26 percent of Americans are in favor of a national ID card, while 41 percent oppose the idea. [wired.com]
    See Wired News: Support for ID Cards Waning

    -
  • In the article, a fan of the technology mentions that the machine is only scanning what's on the front of the license. This may be true, but depending on where you live, that can be a lot more info than you want people tracking.

    In the state of Massachusetts, unless you request otherwise, your license number is your social security number. Granted, license records are public, so if you want, you can get the info anyway, but it seems that allowing someone to scan your license and get not only your physical info, but also your SSN is not very smart.

    That brings us to the question of who is going to be responsible for the data - if a restaraunt isn't careful with their database and an unscrupulous employee snags it, they now have hundreds of records with names, addresses, height, weight, and SSNs. There's all kinds of mischief they could wreak with that kind of info. In these days of rampant credit card fraud and identity theft, you'd think people would think things through a little better.

    Lastly, what about lawsuits? Could I sue a bar that, without my explicit permission, scanned my card and recorded all the data? If a business was busily copying down all the info on the front of my license, I would certainly object. If I didn't know they were doing it, I would have no chance to...

    -skip
  • Make some stray marks with a pen or marker around the bar code. That will prevent the machine from being able to read it. They'll try to scan it a few times, it won't work, so they'll just look at the birthdate - and you won't be databased.

    ID cards, after all, live in wallets, purses, etc., and are bound to get scratched up in every day use. There will be no way to tell that you sped up that process.

    When it comes to the point that a RF chip is in the card, and a non-funtioning card must be replaced ... well, that's when it will be time for a new game plan.

  • Depolarize your Driver's Licence Stripe (Score:3, Informative)

    by poena.dare ( 306891 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:47PM (#3201865)
    Throw off the chains of Mad Deadly Worldwide Gangster Communist Frankenstein Radio Earphone Slavery and depolarize your driver's licence stripe! Buy an ell-skin wallet. Abrade the back with sandpaper. Better yet, re-encode the stripe with the word VOID for each piece of information you don't want to be public.

  • 2-D barcode decoding, and Illinois D.L. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nonesuch ( 90847 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @01:52PM (#3201927) Homepage Journal
    When I first got my new Illinois driver's license with the 2-D barcode, I scanned in the image and dug out some free software to extract the barcoded data.

    I didn't see anything obvious in the barcode that did not already appear on the front. I asked that my SSN not appear on the front, and I also did not see it in the barcoded data.

    There were around 20 bytes of extra binary data which I didn't put much effort into further decoding. I compared the data on my license with the data from the license of friends and family, some bytes matched, some did not.

    No special equipment is needed, any good scanner will work, you do need to make sure that the ID card is aligned at right angles to the scanner, and turn off any anti-speckle features in your software.

    Most of the barcode data extraction software for Windows will accept a TIFF file, I haven't found any good free software that directly supports a TWAIN or other scanner plug-in.

    The free demo software I found will also generate 2-D barcodes as TIFF files...

  • It's the correlated data that scares me... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bihoy ( 100694 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @02:45PM (#3202442)
    I don't generally have a problem with companies that store data about the transactions that I have with them. It's when they start correlating that data with other sources that I start to get concerned.

    In this example data gathered by the Registry of Motor Vehicles (or whatever your state calls them) is being correlated with services and purchases at a Bar.

    The article mentioned the scenario of how a fictitious bouncer could use that data to stalk women.

    There are many scenrios of abuse that this could be used for. Basically the technology allows for your movments and habits to be monitored very easily. That information could be used by others to your harm and detriment. It could be used by governements, businesses, or individuals.

    In todays society it is alomst unthinkable to live without a drivers license. That makes it very difficult to opt out. Sure you can stop going out to clubs and restaurants. Perhaps you can use only public transportation. You could even pay cash for everything so theres no need to provide your license when presenting a credit card. It seems that giving up your privacy is becoming the price you must pay to participate in the beinfits of todays society.

    The use of these devices is bound to increase as business look to reduce risks and increase profits. It's a very slippery slope. Think about where it's all likely to lead.

    I used to think that George Orwell wrote Science Fiction.

  • People, keep your personal information close (Score:3, Interesting)

    by okie_rhce ( 224078 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @03:33PM (#3202826)
    The statement that "the information is already on the front of the card therefore there are no privacy issues" totally misses the point. Think about the alternative. Instead of scanning the license, the bar has to write all of the info down or type it into a computer, just so you can go into the bar. No customer is going to sit there in the cold and wait for some bouncer that types 5 word per minute to fumble the info into a terminal. There are data entry errors to consider and in the first example below the data, though perhaps not all of it, has to be entered in repeatedly during a visit. Remember that technology serves to make menial, tedious tasks easier and orders of magnitude faster. In the time it takes for Bubba to transcribe the face of your drivers license, this scanner has taken 10 more IDs and updated a hundred databases around the world. The second that information becomes digital, it can be traded, sold, exploited a million times in a second totally unregulated. People who try to apply traditional reasoning to societal issues and technology truly don't understand. Sadly these people are the same ones who make your laws.

    When you have a problem and you arrive at a possible solution you have to ask does this solution really solve my problem? Is this scanning solution to the underage drinking/smoking problem really even solving the problem? Ask the RIAA or the MPAA about their efforts to thwart piracy. Long story short, if you can come up with a way to prevent theft, or in this case fraud, someone can come up with a way to defeat it and come up with it faster than it took for you to devise it.

    Lets take this scanning system a small step further. Now in this bar, you must show your ID to make your alcohol purchase. Your consumption is tracked and based upon the number of drinks, the strength of those drinks and your weight from your drivers license, it roughly calculates your blood alcohol level. Persons having too good a time tracked and the cops are waiting outside for you to get into your car. So, you might say that this would have a dramatic effect on the drinking and driving fatalities in this country. I reluctantly agree that in this small context that the end justifies the means. Less dead people is good right? Perhaps another example where it does not is necessary.

    Now lets say that you are a responsible adult and when you do have too good a time at the pub you foot it home or call a cab. No cops, no night in the tombs (yeah, my Law & Order affection gives me away again) so things are good. Wrong. Remember this information is digital, anyone can buy it. What about your employer? You show up at the office after a weekend of partying only to find your stuff packed and your pink slip on your desk because you booze a little to much in you _off_ time. Or perhaps your auto insurance company buys the same info and considers you a higher risk, higher auto premiums. Same goes for cigarette purchases. Health insurance companies buy up the info and increase your premiums or cancel your policy when they see your addiction is getting out of hand.

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