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topic of the weekplease login to add to this item  Biometric Big BrotherMonday, 28 May 2007 Is public safety your prime concern, or do you feel your civil liberties are being eaten away by CCTV, membership databases and the internet? In the latest move to ensure a safe environment for drinkers, one of Brighton's oldest gay pubs has introduced the first biometric membership scheme in the city. After midnight, instead of presenting a membership card to gain entry, you simply put your finger on a scanner and the system identifies you. It's high tech, it's quick and it's hassle-free once you've registered your details with the venue. Does this system overstep a line, or is it simply good use of technology? There are some that will argue that, little by little, we are allowing our lives to be monitored, logged, indexed and processed - and that this is somehow a dangerous or unsavoury thing. The pub's aim is very simply to ensure that the venue is a safe place for customers to drink after hours. With late licensing there is far more likelihood of opportunistic drinkers stumbling from town into gay venues and causing problems... with a good membership system this can be largely avoided. By using fingerprint recognition (the system doesn't actually store a fingerprint itself - merely encodes a few points of the fingerprint and scans for those same points the next time you use it), members can forget about carrying cards and can simply present a finger at the door to gain entry. Controversial? Perhaps... but effective? Without a doubt. What do you think? Most of us are happy to provide our details for a Tesco Clubcard and allow them to log our purchases in return for reward points, but are are you happy to use your fingerprint in place of a card to gain access to member benefits? your comments said by Jerome1 Not being a strong advocate of the current totalitarian regime's desire to brand us all criminals before we've been charged(!)... I do think this is an excellent scheme!  said by onemorechris I imagine many people will see this as a case of, "does it matter if you're not planning on doing anything wrong?" But perhaps the use of this technology suggests a certain level of faceless suspicion to the customer? Having studied similar uses of 'big brother style' tagging and logging, I think we should be prepared for more of this in the future - particularly from shops and supermarkets...  said by MrTinker It all depends on how and where the data collected is used.  said by theguru My thought on this is simple, the information collected will join a main database which will show our movements, lifestyle spending and sexuality! Virtually all information gathered by any such system will form a picture of us and how we live our lives. Is this how our society should develop? ID cards have been rejected by the public but now we are being asked to agree to being fingerprinted socially.  said by Timmy Maybe my sense of paranoia isn't as fully developed as some, but this system doesn't bother me. I didn't really see what all the fuss about ID cards was either... I haven't got anything to hide.  said by jimmegee My journeys in London are logged with an Oyster card, my shopping habits are recorded in Tesco and everybody from the gas company to my mobile phone company records my every move with a credit reference agency. Some of this is voluntary but convenient - but one place I don't want to be tracked is when I'm going out on the razz! I have already turned down the opportunity to sign up to this scheme at the Bulldog. Surely pubs and bars can find better, more friendly ways of controlling drinkers (isn't that what bouncers are for....?) said anonymously Public safety of course hugely concerns the public, but clubs are by definition private areas designated for friendly socialising with like-minded members.
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said by Mike
on Tuesday, 29 May 2007, 9:16am
Think it's a great idea, it also overcomes other problems at the same time.