Hacker News Reader

Comment by TedDoesntTalk | Hacker News Reader

> bars often ask for photo ID to verify that customers are old enough to be served alcohol.

1. This is a subset of all customers so it is not as useful as all customers

2. I’ve never seen a bartender or waitress scan my photo ID or record the data on the ID; without that it isn’t highly unlikely the data is being stored.

Your comparison is just not valid.

View on HN

There are some bars in Sacramento, CA that not only scan your ID, but scan your face, and use facial recognition to match you with previous scans, ostensibly to make sure you aren’t sharing an ID with someone underage.

It is extremely creepy.

time to avoid those bars. extreme oversight to ensure a 20-year-old doesn't drink. but hey at least the same 20-year-old can drive a car, vote for our public officials, and join the armed forces.

and buy a gun

Ever go to a cannabis shop in California? Your driver's license is scanned. I don't know about the facial recognition part, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Great! But I think we're talking about bars and restaurants.

Isn't it funny how shit like that is only reported from the USA? Here in the EU, the bartender looks with his eyes at the photo ID the teenage girl is holding up[1] and then pours her a drink.

But Yanks screech about European surveillance states, and denounce the evil EU and its "sheeple" citizens... Much better over there, of course, where it's just corporations and not the eevul gubmint that's doing it.

___

[1]: That she borrowed off her elder sister...

There's a gas station store that does this in Portland OR. They have a facial recognition camera at the door that scans each person to enter the store after sundown.

I have a lot of sympathy for people working late night in crime prone jobs.

why has this been downvoted so much? what's false about these two statements? Should he/she have added "in my experience"?

In my experience, both statements are accurate.

I don't get the downvotes here - these are two good observations.

Probably because it seems like personal experience. I can say most of the bars I go to check everyone’s ID, regardless of age. And there are a couple near me that scan IDs in to some system (allegedly so they can ban unruly customers.)

Surely this is down to regional variation. I go into bars all the time in Canada and no one ever IDs me.

I disagree with you. I have regularly had my ID scanned, in some bars systematically (all customers). Although only in the UK.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com