More retailers requiring driver's license swipes

[Newsjock]

Source: KGO-TV

It's not unusual to be asked to show ID in order to make certain purchases, but now there's a new trend among retailers to swipe your driver's license through an electronic reader. That action has a lot of shoppers wondering just what is being checked and tracked.

... No one would doubt that Carolyn and Gene Taylor are old enough to drink; after all, she's 64 and he's 75. So it was a complete shock when they tried to buy liquor at a Rite Aid store in Oakley.

"The clerk asked me to take my driver's license out of my wallet and to scan it. I said 'Why?'" said Carolyn. "It was just to prove you were old enough to buy alcohol."

... Carolyn swiped her license anyway, went to her car with her two bottles, and then suddenly had a terrible thought.

"It's out there. The cat's out of the bag now that I consume alcohol," said Carolyn. "I thought, 'Great, now what have I done?' I thought, 'I bet my health insurance is going to go up,' or 'Is my car insurance going to go up?'"

... She did call 7 On Your Side and it seems this is bigger than Rite Aid. A growing number of retailers, night clubs, rental companies and banks now are requiring you to swipe your driver's license to make all kinds of transactions.

Read more: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7441118&rss=rss-kgo-article-7441118

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Oh no, now the trilateral commission knows she drinks alcohol.

Black helicopters any minute now.

[depakid]

8. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this information were passed on to insurers

-or to marketers.

Databases like this are valuable and companies pay good money for access to them.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GumboYaYa]

2. It makes life difficult for someone like me who doesn't drive and doesn't

have a drivers license. We just assume that everyone drives and has a license in our society, that's how car centric we are. And don't even get me started on how some car drivers act towards bicycles on the road.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Don't you have an ID??

[Posteritatis]

13. The article's pretty specific on other forms of ID not cutting it. (nt)

[jberryhill]

15. All states offer a "non-driver" driver's license /nt

[crikkett]

77. That's not the point.

The point is that this is an intrusion of privacy and that it's easy to assume that the information gathered from the driver's license can be sold and/or abused.

[Xithras]

16. The California ID card and License use the same tech.

Because it's the same card. Internally, a California ID card and a California drivers license are identical records existing in the same databases, using the same cards and the same magnetic stripe. The only difference is that the state ID card has one character flipped to "I" instead of "D" on the mag stripe, and the license class contains a "0".

For ID purposes, including scanning for purchases, they're interchangeable.

[Statistical]

26. VA (for example) offers both driver's licenses and govt ID

both are issued by DMV one simply doesn't allow you to drive.

Both can be used for age verification and both have magnetic strip for swiping.

[Berry Cool]

82. Actually, the article says no such thing about "other forms of ID not cutting it."

It does go on a lot about drivers' licenses as if they were the only form of ID people have, but it mentions state IDs too, at the end, listing what drivers' licenses and state IDs can and cannot be used for by retailers.

It's pretty obvious that when they say retailers are requiring customers allow their drivers' licenses to be swiped, they mean drivers' licenses AND state ID cards. They are NOT saying that if you don't have a California driver's license, you can't buy booze in California!

[Codeine]

39. Regular old IDs work just fine.

A standard non-driver ID will scan through our machines in precisely the same fashion as a driver's license.

[LakeSamish706]

3. Interesting, I haven't run across it yet but think if I do I would just leave and buy my

product some place else. This is really delving into your personal info. and who knows what they are using it for.

[Auggie]

5. Same here

Except when I want to buy pseudoephedrine, AKA Sudafed. If you want to buy the "old, stronger" version it's law in California to record your DL.

[Bill McBlueState]

44. it's law everywhere

That's in the Patriot Act, for some reason.

[GoCubsGo]

47. It's an ingredient in crystal meth

Supposedly, this keeps people from buying mass quantities of it so it can be converted into meth. The part of me that really resents having to sign my life away for a box of Sudafed gets overridden by the part of me that sees what a horrible thing methamphetamines are.

[Auggie]

52. Agree

[TwilightGardener]

4. What do they need to know about us that isn't either obvious in person

or not recorded on the FRONT of the license (along with the photo)?

[Xithras]

6. Many retailers have done this to protect themselves.

The law requires that customers be 21 to buy, and all stores require that employees verify age before selling alcohol, but there are always some employees who either don't care, are in a hurry, or simply see themselves as "rebelling". Then there's the peer pressure factor...when you're a 21 year old guy and three of your 20 year old buddies walk in (or the stacked 19 year old down the street)...few people are going to risk friendships and dates to obey a rule at a barely above minimum wage job. So they sell, and when the stores get busted, the store pays the fines.

Many stores have grown tired of firing employees and paying fines for underage alcohol sales, so they came up with a simple solution. The register simply will not scan or process the sale of ANY alcohol unless a drivers license is swiped. The register system can verify the customers age itself.

I've written and maintained POS register and inventory management software for retailers before, and this is a growing practice. I can tell you, as someone who wrote some of that software, that nothing nefarious is going on behind the scenes. Most stores are doing this to save money, and they know that they'll be sued to bejeezus if they were to try and capture that data for other purposes. It's a violation of state law to use drivers license data for anything other than verifying identity.

[WinkyDink]

17. Agreed. My Wegman's does this for beer. Why should a cashier have to decide? Just show the dang ID.

[hobbit709]

23. 64 and 75 and you need to show an ID to prove you're over 21?

Give me a break.

[WinkyDink]

65. No. It's because the STORE CAMERAS on the EMPLOYEES cannot tell if the EMPLOYEE is doing the job

correctly. SO GIVE THE MINIMUM-WAGE EARNER A BREAK.

[WinkyDink]

66. (Board error.)

[TheMightyFavog]

20. Not to mention it cuts down on kids using forged DLs to buy booze.

This way, you don't have to train your employees on how to spot fake IDs (especailly out-of-state ones) Just let the computer do the work.

[Raineyb]

28. And the scanning is necessary why? The birth date is right on the license.

They don't have to scan a damn thing.

[Codeine]

34. Because the cashier can enter a false date.

The scanning prevents that, and can save the business a twenty grand fine or revocation of its liquor licence.

[Statistical]

37. How does that prove anything.

You show me an ID that say you are 18.
I think you are cute so I punch it 01/01/1900 as birthdate.

If register requires cashier to scan ID that can't happen.

[Xicano]

59. Sure it can still happen

Does it prevent an 18yr old from using older brother's or sister's ID? Nope!

This country has lost all concept of its founding principles. Might as well be nazi twilight zone. It seems to be the direction we continually inch toward.

[Statistical]

62. The founders believed in limits on the power of governments not grocery stores.

Our founding fathers would say if you don't like what the store is doing then DON'T SHOP AT THAT STORE.

If enough people will do that they will either go out of business or drop the policy.

You have no Constitutional right to not have your ID verified when involved in a private transaction at grocery store.

Hell if the store wanted to videotape you, capture your signature, and photo copy your driver's license they could do that too, off course they would risk pissing customers off.

I love when people trout out the Constitution about every perceived slight especially among those that don't involve the government. :rofl:

[fishwax]

73. yes -- still plenty of ways to work around this

[Raineyb]

71. It's not the job of the person presenting the license to "prove" the employee did what they're

supposed to do. That would be the job of the retailer. And the argument that it's easier for the retailer is a piss poor excuse for such a practice that has such potential for abuse. You can make this argument until the cows come home it doesn't change the odiousness of the practice nor does it make the sheep like compliance any less sheep like.

[RamboLiberal]

45. Yep - that's the situtation in a grocery store chain here my area of PA

It's a must for their POS register & software to make the sale of beer.

Also in PA they finally are allowing the experiment of supermarkets & big gas/grocery chains to sell beer in six packs & bottles if they have a restaurant in the building.

Now if we could only get wine and hard liquor.

[SoCalDem]

49. and around here, they swipe the license when people write a check

it replaces the time a clerk had to take writing down the damned license number..but then people write fewer checks now that the ATM/Debit card is used more often.

We no longer live in an "Our Town" world, where all the local merchants know you and your dog's name. Merchants are more likely to be an employee of BigBox Co, Inc, and are in fear of losing their own jobs for any infraction that can occur.

[grasswire]

7. don't states encode all kinds of info on those stripes?

and won't retailers (or big brother) access that info by swiping?

Sometimes medical info is on the stripe, sometimes photo image.

Here's an interesting article about it.

http://schram.net/articles/barcode.html

[Xithras]

11. The California license only contains three fields not present on the front of the card.

The date you paid your fees, a code for the office that processed your license, and the employee ID of the DMV worker who input your data into the computer. These are internal fraud prevention fields that the DMV uses to catch workers who issue fraudulent licenses.

Other than that, there's no data on the stripe that isn't already printed on your card. Your photo, contrary to popular belief, is not encoded on there either. It can't be, the entire stripe only holds 40 bytes of data.

[Occulus]

12. "and the employee ID of the DMV worker who input your data"

WOW. I don't know about state workers, but I'm a Federal employee and my employee ID is used for several different internal purposes. It's printed on my pay stub and is also used to record sick leave requests, among other things.

I definitely would not want that data in the hands of a third party.

[Xithras]

14. I doubt it's their "formal" employee ID.

It's an ID number specific to the employee, but I doubt it's the same one used for all of their other internal records. They probably have a specific number set just for printing on their licenses, and they cross reference when needed.

Then again, the DMV software, like all other software in the California state government, was written by the lowest bidding outside contractor. So who knows... :shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Which is exactly what they would tell us if it was otherwise.

:evilgrin:

[Xithras]

22. LOL! I wouldn't worry about that too much.

The data on a CDL and a CID isn't encrypted, and anyone with a card reader and a bit of technical knowhow can rip (and even rewrite) the information on a card. The conspiracy theorists went nuts when California started using it back in the early 90's, and people were reading and checking the data within days of their first issuance. There are no secret data tracks on there.

In fact, a quick Google turned this up in about 15 seconds: http://www.exeba.com/comm40/califdriverlic.htm. A track by track, and character by character, explanation of all the data on a California license/ID magnetic stripe.

[Newsjock]

24. The concern is what the DL data gets *linked* to

If you have to swipe to buy alcohol or certain over-the-counter drugs, what does the retailer do with that data? Sure, selling it is "illegal," and I'm sure the "penalties" would amount to about three minutes of net profit.

If you're in a late-night collision, can the insurance company subpoena records from all nearby bars to determine whether you'd been drinking?

If you have a heart attack, can the insurance company subpoena your frequent-shopper records to find out how many boxes of Twinkies and Ho-ho's you've bought?

The temptations are too strong; the data are too easily available.

[Statistical]

36. Well if you are that paranoid you can buy a USB magnetic scanner

and scan your own card to find out what is on it. Magnetic strip can't hold very much information. There is a lot of redundancy to ensure accurate scanning.

Most cards use ISO/IEC standard 7811 because that is what CC use so it means anything that scans a CC can scan it without needing specialized hardware/software.

[sylveste]

76. if you're that paranoid

you can wipe a magnet across it a few times and erase it if you're that paranoid. infact i've erased a few hotel room keys by accident just by keeping them in the same pocket as my cell phone, go figure huh.

[NeedleCast]

10. In the case of alcohol sales, many states have adopted a zero tolerance policy

that, while dumb, has to be inforced.

A few weeks back I worked security at a wine festival checking IDs. The Maryland agency that regulates alcohol sales (I forget their acronymn) was there and told those of us checking IDs that we had to check 100% of the people coming in even if they looked 85 (and some were).

Most people took it as a compliment. Some acted like dicks. Either way, the sponsors of the event could have been heavily fined if we didn't comply with the state regulators.

[obxhead]

48. in VA and NC you are required to have your ID in your possession

if drinking in a public venue. I hated having to tell anyone clearly old enough to drink they couldn't because they failed to have an ID with them.

[HopeHoops]

18. My response: "Gee, it is nice of you to announce that you don't want my business."

Fuck that noise.

[blueamy66]

38. I'm with ya.

I'd leave and go elsewhere.

[HopeHoops]

42. Yep. Like I said: "Fuck THAT noise!"

"Your papers please." What the hell is this, Arizona?

[blueamy66]

46. Hey, Hey, Hey....

At least in AZ, there is a store that sells liquor on every corner. :-)

[HopeHoops]

50. And that's a good thing because....

I mean face it, if you can't plan ahead and get enough booze to get you through the night and/or weekend, you DEFINITELY don't need anymore.

[blueamy66]

55. That is true.

I try to stock up. :-)

[fishwax]

63. i think that would be my response as well

Plenty of other places I can buy alcohol without having my data swiped and stored.

[nykym]

21. You have to show and swipe

your drivers license to buy a pack of smokes in CT.

[Gormy Cuss]

25. And in CA people just LINE UP to have their privacy violated this way.

Retailers who want to swipe my ID are told "no sale." If consumers had spines in this state such odious practices would go away.

Nice to see that some consumers are standing up to retailers on this issue, according to the article.

[kenny blankenship]

41. I can't believe what i'm seeing here on this thread

"oh you don't get it, it's just for the retailer to protect themselves from their lazy ass employees"

Since when does a retailer's distrust of its employees trump people's reasonable expectation of privacy?

Photocopy and digitize my driver's license at the liquor store? The fuck you will.

Say this for the gun nuts: they know that if you want to keep something you consider a right and liberty you have be vigilant and resist any encroachment on that right with undivided force. When you see the thin edge of the wedge coming, snap it off with overwhelming force. I wish privacy advocates could muster the same unified defense of the right to be left alone and not be forced to live under a magnifying glass.

[grasswire]

51. +1 n/t

[krabigirl]

54. exactly. I am completely opposed to this and am shocked by the responses here.

[dkf]

56. Well just walk out. You don't need to buy anything anywhere after all.

I'm sure you can grow your own food too.

[WinkyDink]

68. I'm assuming you don't have a Facebook page.

[Statistical]

27. Retailers do this to protect themselves.

No big conspiracy.

Depending on the state a single violation can run from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. To many violations and the entire chain (not single store) has license revoked.

A single cashier can result in loss of ABC license and millions of dollars in revenue.

By swiping the card they have a record that the person presented a valid ID at time of purchase. It provides the store some level of protection that they don't get from cashier simply "checking".

How do you verify cashier actually checked ID? Was cashier just bored/tired and typed in a random date? Did cashier "look the other way" or allow a friend to purchase under age?

By scanning the card their is a audit trail that at least the person buying alcohol had ID that said they were the proper age.

[Raineyb]

31. The birth date is on the license there is no need to scan it.

And I am more concerned with protecting myself than the damn store.

[NYC Liberal]

32. You don't get it: this is to prevent the EMPLOYEE from selling to minors

and ensure that the date is checked.

[Raineyb]

58. I do get it.

The store apparently thinks violating its customers is more important than putting in procedures to make sure that the employee does their job correctly.

The store's inability to do what it has to to comply with the law does not necessitate me allowing them to swipe my license when they have no business doing so.

Clearly YOU are the one who isn't getting it.

[Statistical]

61. By swiping the license they ensure their employees are complying with the law.

If you don't like it feel free to purchase from another location.

However as states are really cracking down on ABC violations right now (good pay to bolster sagging revenue) expect more and more chains to do swipe check.

[Raineyb]

70. You act as though it's the only way. And it's not. Like I said the store clearly

has decided this is the easiest way to comply. It's not my job to make it easier for them and they don't get to swipe my license. Your attitude is part of the problem. The retailers get away with it because too many people act like fucking sheep and put up with any old bit of bullshit that is presented to them. If enough people said "no" they wouldn't. But apparently the further misuse of your personal information isn't important enough to you to say something. Fine, that's your prerogative but spare me the bullshit sales pitch about how it's so necessary when we both bloody well know it's not.

[Codeine]

64. It's the result of zero tolerance by the government

when it comes to decoy sales. Any violation can cost a store its beer and spirits license, which means that store goes out of business. in order to stay in business the stores do what they have to do.

[Statistical]

35. How does that prove that employee verified date?

You could show an underage ID and the store clerk could type in birth date of 01/01/1900 and register would allow the purchase.

By scanning the actual card it 100% prove you had a valid ID. Now it might not be your ID :) but the ID that was scanned was valid for purchasing alcohol.

I am not saying you should care about the store. I am simply telling you the reality. One of my older jobs would working with POS (point of sale) software/terminals. Even 5 years ago there was work being done on this. Eventually they will have you swipe your own card (just like they do credit cards).

[Raineyb]

60. THAT is not my concern. My license being swiped by a retail entity which we all

know has absolutely no respect for its customer's data is. I could care less how the hell they verify that the ID was checked so long as they don't swipe my license to do so.

[KonaKane]

29. I just turned 50, and I'm still carded when buying alcohol.

I don't get offended, I'n flattered if anything.

By the way, they didn't swipe any card - they just looked at it.

[greencharlie]

33. soon it'll be the barcode tattoed on your forearm... nt

[zonkers]

40. Bars do this all the time. Lets them know who their customers are, not just for

marketing purposes but also in case there is any type of incident, they can ID the patrons.

[MajorChode]

43. They would be shit out of luck with mine

It has been re-encoded to work the gate at the airport.

[Rex]

53. TIA must...have...more...data...

Payroll thumbprints at the grocery store were not enough...it finished biometrics 101...now it wants raw commerce numbers to counteract the Illuminates supercomputer, global pyramid-scheme AlGore-rhythm. You know...undetectable-secret wars fought in cyberspace...fat fingers...over your credit ratings cohabitation life expectancy! Oh yeah. Know it. 6 nanoseconds!

[dkf]

57. Oh look. Papers please is everywhere. Oh no!

[kcass1954]

67. Mine doesn't swipe any more. Really pisses 'em off when I try to buy Nyquil.

My kid's school hates my DL, too - they have to enter my info manually when I show up at school for something.

(Must have been that weekend when I parked the DL between the front and back of my name badge from work - green magnet on that puppy.)

[fishwax]

75. they swipe your card when you buy Nyquil?

[L0oniX]

79. Magnets / science is a wonderful thing.

[havocmom]

69. Consider this in light of another DUer's thread about DMV questions

and what information just might be encoded on your license:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8338158&mesg_id=8338158

It relates to questions about mental health issues. It is worth thinking about before one goes along with retailers who want you to offer up any and all info the state may have on that magnetic strip.

[walldude]

72. Then those retailers lose my business...

Pretty simple. They can check my age without scanning my ID.

[ddeclue]

74. Umm... more retailers will find me paying cash and shopping somewhere else.

[L0oniX]

78. Run that license over a magnet ...ooops info all gone.

[aikoaiko]

80. Certain strip clubs would take finger prints when big bills were paid with a credit card

Damn those strip clubs -- they were the gateway.

[mittenlandgirl]

81. suggestion

Try simply telling the cashier you don't want them to swipe it.

Can't speak for other retailers but where I work, it just means waiting a bit for the supervisor to come over and type in their approval for manual entry.

We actually had this come up recently. All the employees had to be informed of this because a customer got really upset and the cashier didn't realize that's all she had to do.

Automatically swiping protects the retailer from fines and keeps the line moving. Cashiers are actually timed on how long each sale takes to improve fast service. But if you don't mind waiting a few minutes, things can be adjusted to make you happy. :)

[nonconformist]

83. Hell, I won't even give stores my phone number when they ask

I won't be doing this.