Concerns raised over ID scanners coming to downtown bars
Posted Oct 6, 2011 05:10:07 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A score of restaurants and bars in Halifax are signing up for a new initiative to control problem patrons in the downtown core.
Under the plan, identification will be scanned electronically before liquor is served to any customer.
The Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia says the program is being phased in over the next six to eight months in an effort to catch fake IDs and to enforce bans on problem customers.
“What they’re looking for is to see if it is infact a real ID, if you are banned as part of this program, or if you’re on their own (list) because some bars have their own individual suspension lists,” Ashley Coffin tells News 95.7
The program has been in effect in Manitoba and British Columbia for years.
But concerns have been raised about whether the information will be collected, stored and sold or passed to marketing companies or police organizations.
The federal privacy commissioner found the scanners collected more information than necessary and kept information longer than necessary.
Coffin explained that’s no longer the case.
“The data is only kept for a short period of time,” she said. “So if you’re in the bar that night and you’re scanning the ID that information completely disappears after 24 hours, or 12 hours, whatever it may be. Each individual type of technology has different requirements.”
While problem customers could be banned from a bar for a year , Coffin says personal information is not stored on the hand-held scanners, but in a secure network server.
