Friendly Discussion

Tonight when I was buying groceries, the cashier asked for my driver's license. She had just scanned a bottle of wine and as I'm in my early 40's, I don't usually gat asked for it. So I laughed, and held it up. She took it from my hand, sort of squinted at it, and then very quickly ran it through the scanner. I asked why she scanned it, and all she could do was giggle. I asked why she didn't ask me if she could scan it. More giggles. I asked to speak to a manager. None was available.

I realize this may have been the store's way of making sure I'm 21, but they have never done it before.

As far as I can tell, my SSN is not on the magnetic strip, but almost everything else on the license is. Obviously birthdate, height, weight etc.




Private Joker is silly and he’s ignorant but he’s got guts, and guts is enough.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 06/24/08 10:53PM by Some Guy.

I recently got a new license. It has one of those fancy 2d barcodes on it instead of the old fashioned line-barcodes... which are also 2d.

Anyway, as soon as people in stores saw the new license, they started asking me to let them scan it. They certainly can (and many stores do) use it for idiot-proof age-verification, but they also use the info in the barcode to collect personal data for marketing purposes. They then sell that info.

You have the right to refuse to let them do it. Producing the license and letting them look at it should be sufficient and if that's not good enough for them then take your business elsewhere.

Why did Target scan your Driver's License?

Because you let them.

Even leaping over the counter and striking the girl, I don't think I could have reacted fast enough to stop the scan.
[images.google.com]

> Even leaping over the counter and striking the girl, I don't think I could have reacted
> fast enough to stop the scan.

Mine is in my wallet, behind a clear plastic window.

I hold onto the wallet while they look at the license and if they ask nicely for me to remove the license for them to observe it in more detail I will do so and continue to hold onto the license while they look at it.

Swipe At Privacy

[www.informationweek.com]

My wife and I had the same experience last weekend! You show them the license because that's a normal thing to do. Cashiers usually read it and hand it back. You don't expect them to _steal_all_ of your information from it.

Here's my post about the incident:
"Target Needs to Know My Organ Donor Status to Sell Me Wine?!" [thruhike98.wordpress.com]

They do it at bars as well. The idea is that while it is easy to modify the human readable text on the front, it is not the case for the bar codes. The idea is that if you have a fake ID, the bar code may not match up properly to the the other information.

They don't steal your information. The scanners that they (and bars) have only give a readout of OVER 21 or NOT.

That said, you can refuse to have them scan it, but they can also refuse to sell to you. They have no legal obligation

Who said steal? The scanners read the whole stripe. As I said 2X I did not have a chance to refuse.

> The scanners that they (and bars) have only give a readout of OVER 21 or NOT.

While the bouncer typically just sees a red or green light, the 2D scanners record (at least) state, age, license number, date of birth and expiration date. Sometimes there's a photo and home address embedded in the barcode, too.

Bars are making quite a bit of spare cash selling the info they get from drivers licenses to marketers and to liquor companies who want to know what demographics are drinking their booze on promo nights, state and local governments collect the data for (ostensibly) demographic purposes and police have been known to request that data during investigations.

Wanna worry?
[www.wired.com]

From the Wired story: I like the idea of putting a sticker over the barcode.

is that why I started getting Target weekly's only after I shopped their once with my debit card?

...your papers, citizen! Show me your papers!