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CNN Sunday Morning
New High-Tech ID Scanners May Help Fight Underage Drinking
Aired September 08, 2002 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now when I was a young man, there was a few occasions when I tried to get into saloons, when I probably shouldn't have. Hasn't everyone tried that at one time in their lives? Well, maybe not everyone, but lots of us have tried it, but technology is here to thwart you, young ladies and gentlemen. Daniel Sieberg is here to talk a little bit about some scanners that might be appearing at a tavern near you soon. Tell us about it.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Yes, good morning. Miles, it doesn't seem that long ago, the most high tech device a bouncer might have had was the flashlight, as they're looking at somebody's ID...
O'BRIEN: Yes.
SIEBERG: ...to see if the information matches up. We've got a couple of different examples here of high tech ID scanners that are showing up more and more at different bars...
O'BRIEN: These are on the market already. So...
SIEBERG: They are on the market already. That's right. We'll touch on some security possibilities for these as well, but we're going to start here with the machine from Intellicheck. We've got a couple of drivers' licenses here. These are actual drivers' licenses, not actual people, of course. We're going to just slide it in here.
On the back, in fact at home, you can look on the back of your own license and see you may have a bar code here or a magnetic stripe. And this machine is going to read the bar code as I slide it in here. We've hooked up a laptop to this machine, just for the purposes of display. You don't necessarily need to have this laptop. And if you see here, it says "No, the person cannot buy alcohol. Yes, to tobacco." So they're under 21. And it lists all of the information that you would see on the front of somebody's license. That's the key to these devices...
O'BRIEN: So...
SIEBERG: ...they're showing -- they're trying to match the information that's encoded.
O'BRIEN: So the bouncer doesn't even have to do the mathematics.
SIEBERG: Right. No mathematics involved with -- in this case. O'BRIEN: All right, now and I guess the theory behind this is, first of all, those bar codes are on in many states right now. Most licenses have them.
SIEBERG: That's right. In -- the most licenses do have them, Miles. About 41 or 42 states currently have it. Others are slowly adopting it. But that's key to why this technology hasn't been adopted across the country yet, because not every state has adopted this encoding on the back of licenses.
I just wanted to show one other one here, if I could.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
SIEBERG: We've got one that can demonstrate some of the potential for security. We're going to just update that. This is another license. And when I slide this into the reader here, what you're going to see when it comes up on the laptop -- I'm just going to turn this around -- when it comes up on the machine over here, you're going to see something a little bit different. Aside from just the information that was on here before, there's a picture for some states that can be encoded, as well as this alert symbol. So if there was something about this individual that they wanted to get out to the larger community, that could also be read by the scanner.
O'BRIEN: So this is run against perhaps the NCIC, the central crime computer that the FBI runs, that kind of thing, for warrants, that sort of thing?
SIEBERG: Potentially, yes. If that was something that they want us to put out on the different scanner.
O'BRIEN: How do you get the VIP status on there, Daniel? I want to...
SIEBERG: That's a good question.
O'BRIEN: ...I'd like to get that VIP on my...
SIEBERG: Yes, absolutely.
O'BRIEN: ...license. You pay a little extra for the license maybe.
SIEBERG: Right.
O'BRIEN: This is probably expensive equipment.
SIEBERG: It does range between about $500 and $2,500 for the different scanners. As I say, this one is from a company called Intellicheck. We have another device here from Logics.
O'BRIEN: Oh...
SIEBERG: This one is a little bit different, only because it's able to read the magnetic stripe on the machine, rather than the actual bar code. And we're just going to...
O'BRIEN: Well, and it seems to -- a server or a waitress could actually carry that with him or her.
SIEBERG: Right, this one is a little bit more portable...
O'BRIEN: Yes.
SIEBERG: ...as you can see than this one here. This one is powered by Linux. And we've got another ID here. We're just going to swipe it through.
O'BRIEN: Right.
SIEBERG: And if I swipe it through like this, it's telling us that it's a valid ID.
O'BRIEN: OK.
SIEBERG: So that that person can purchase whatever they're after.
O'BRIEN: I see.
SIEBERG: Or get into any place that....
O'BRIEN: It gives you the age and everything just like that.
SIEBERG: As much information as is on the front of the card, that's the idea behind being (UNINTELLIGIBLE) itself.
O'BRIEN: All right, well, I presume, given the costs, and weighing that against the possibility of lawsuits if somebody has served under age, you're going to see this in a lot of establishments soon?
SIEBERG: Potentially, yes. Besides the fact that these states have adopted all of this encoding technology, which is limiting it being adopted ever. For example, if you took a low tech license to a high tech state, they couldn't read it because the information just wouldn't be there. Beyond that, there are concerns that companies may not understand how to use this. It's meant to be fairly intuitive. But there's sort of taking a wait and see approach, a lot of these different establishments.
O'BRIEN: And I suppose, of course you're using your drivers' license at the airport a lot these days, there's an application there as well?
SIEBERG: Absolutely. There are future applications for this airports, for delivery drivers. At banks, for example, if they're trying to prove who they are. One of the other overriding concerns in all of this is, of course, privacy. There are concerns that this information could be stored in some way, used later. The companies that make these different scanners say there are safeguards in place. And it also varies by state, whether the state can actually keep the information for later, or whether it can be stored, only for law enforcement purposes. So there does range by state. And they do say that there are safeguards in place for...
O'BRIEN: Well, as we look at some of the places where this might be occurring...
SIEBERG: Right.
O'BRIEN: ..the gray states are where there -- this is possible, because the bar coding, is that correct?
SIEBERG: Exactly. That's the states that have done this, have used this encoding technology. We see a couple of other states that have some unique differences.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
SIEBERG: Georgia is actually unreadable, the code that's on there is unreadable. But some of these states that are currently white, right now, are moving into the gray area. They are actually considering adopting this technology.
O'BRIEN: All right. And you touched on that issue. I mean, literally, the state could keep track of your comings and goings. How often you go to have a beer or whatever?
SIEBERG: Right. The state potentially could as well as the company where you go. You know, and that's part of the concern is that they may start marketing things based on events that you're going to. If you're always going to a jazz concert or something, they might send you more information on that. So oftentimes, these companies can store the information, but they also leave it up to the businesses in many cases on whether or not they're going to keep it and for how long.
O'BRIEN: All right, big brothers getting bigger, Daniel.
SIEBERG: Yes, that's right.
O'BRIEN: All right. Daniel Sieberg, our technology guru. Thank you very much for dropping by.
SIEBERG: Right, thanks, Miles.
O'BRIEN: And scanning us in on this subject matter.
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