security so good, you will never go back

created: Wed Jul 20 23:13:55 2005
last mod: Tue Nov 15 23:32:30 2005

So I'm going to visit my accountant the other day, that bastard, but this is not about my accountant.

His office is in a building on 42nd Street. Typical 1930s office building. One goes up to the counter and signs in. They look at ID. So I hand my driver's license over to the security guard and she pushes it into a little device and up pops my personal information on her computer screen. As I notice that she hands me a printed visitor pass with my picture on it. She's also just photographed me.

I tell her I didn't give her permission to put my data into her computer. She tells me it's just for printing the visitor pass. So in about 20 seconds she's entered all of my data into her computer, photographed me electronically and lied about it.

The pass has a barcode on it, and a company name: Kastle Systems. Yes, they're also a DOD contractor.

What irks me, beyond the initial privacy violation of it all, is that they feel they can grab my information for free. I might be alright with them having this information, but if they are going to use it (and who knows how they plan to) they should compensate me. This is also an answer to the one about having nothing to hide, thus no reason to be upset.

I didn't get to test what would happen if I refused to proffer state-issued ID. I feel it's likely I'd have been let in anyway, maybe with a call to the office upstairs.

This is all probably a reaction to the current fear people are supposed to have of terrorism. Of course, suicide bombers don't care if you know who they are, or were. Anyway, knowing the names of the 1000 of people who go in and out in a day is still of limited crime-fighting potential.

So why are they collecting data? I have three theories:
1. A good salesman convinced them it would be safer
2. To make their customers, the tenants, feel good
3. Becuse they are less sueable and their insurance is lower with such a system in place

If you use your driver's license as an ID, I suggest you put tape over the bar codes. What would be better would be to tape spoof barcodes over the 1D and 2D barcodes with all fake data, though that could be taken the wrong way be law enforcement types.

Just wait till we get our national ID cards!

security so good, you will never go back is filed under security (3) .