(GA) County proposes new pawn shop ordinance; Fingerprints, photo ID uploaded to police DB

[The Straight Story]

COBB COUNTY, Ga. -

Pawn shops in Cobb County could soon have to follow a new set of rules aimed at helping fight crime.

A proposed ordinance would require pawn shops to submit a digital fingerprint and photo of their customers to a national police database.

Cash America owns two pawn shops in Cobb County. The company thinks uploading digital fingerprints and photographs of its customers to a police database operated by a private vendor could pose a privacy and security threat.

"This database that they're uploading all this information to, we're all concerned now about identity theft and everything about you getting out. This is the best way for it to happen," said John Moore, an attorney for the Texas-based Cash America.

Moore says Cash America already fingerprints and checks the IDs of its customers, and shares that information with law enforcement.

"There is no change in prevention of crime by going to the new stuff as compared to what we're doing already. If there were, I think we would certainly be right on board," said Moore.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/22798508/cobb-ordinance-would-require-pawn-shops

[Lee-Lee]

1. You would get a lot better results

If you just simply get people to keep records of the serial numbers of all their valuables.

All the fingerprints, pictures, or anything else won't matter if you don't have that. Because without that, you simply can't identify it as stolen.

I don't know how many cases of burglary I worked where we simply couldn't do anything past give them a report because they didn't have that information. Probably 95% of them. Even if the item turns up in a pawn shop later, without the serial number you can't prove that is your TV or one of millions others like it.

If you don't have the serial numbers of all your valuables recorded in a safe place, along with photos of jewelry and the like, don't expect to get the back if they get stolen, because the police won't have any way to identify them.