Public library to use fingerprint scanners to verify identity
posted May 21st 2005 5:27PM
So we thought the whole thing about public libraries providing free internet access is a pretty great idea — lowering the digital divide and all that. Too bad it's going on lockdown in Naperville, Illinois, where library officials are implementing a system that requires authentication by fingerprint scanner before you can sit down at a public terminal and fire up that browser. There's some mumbo jumbo flying about how your fingerprint scans can't be reverse engineered by evildoers, and how the data can't possibly be cross-referenced with other more notable fingerprint registries kept by the FBI and state police — but we and the ACLU know the fishy whiff of privacy invasion when we smell it. Yeah, call us paranoid if you must, but it just seems like overkill to have to submit to a fingerprinting before being able to check email in a public library.
This is pretty freaky.
I wonder when we will have to have our fingerprint scanned when we go to Mcdonalds, or to the ballgame?
My school library in the UK has had fingerprint identification for 4 years.
This is a good thing. People that are too poor to have home internet access need to be monitored.
This is a lame excuse to exercise more control over the people. Why do they need finger-prints when a picture would suffce... smile!
this is shit let the people go online in public libraries god.
I don't mind giving my fingerprint to identify myself at a library, or anywhere my identity is needed, BUT I think for the library it's a little over kill especially when any SMUCK can get a drivers license using any of a hundred Fake ID's.
My old highschool now uses fingerprints at lunch. Kids scan sorta like a credit card. You can still pay in cash but the fingerprint thing has become very popular I guess.
As for my thoughts... I dont really care. If the FBI gets my fingerprint in there system *shrugs* I dont care. Cus if I commit a crime... I dont plan on leaving anything behind.
Like a ninja.
Blood samples...thats a different story. I think scanning the eye would be a much better idea if they had the money. but its naperville and they sure as hell have the money (I live like right next to naperville)
All a library requires for a person to walk out their front door with their property (i.e. - a book) is a library card, but now they want a finger print for that same person to use their computer and Internet connection for a few minutes?
If they are requiring such detailed information, I am sure that they are keeping a record of which computer you used, which can be crossed referenced to the history on the computer to determine the sites. This assumes that all of this information is not being automatically logged into a file via some program on the computer. Once this information is recorded it can be subject to subpoena from the various government agencies.
They can ask for your library card, they can take your picture via cctv, so why do they need your fingerprints?
Lets face it people, this is NOT a policy developed by the little old lady that works for your local library. This comes from higher up and probably from another governmental agency (CIA, FBI, BATF, Secret Service, etc...).
So much for our Constitutional Privacy Rights.
Why don't they just stick to milking cows and herding sheep. That's the best they do in the plaines anyway. Stick to what you know, hicks!
I'm not joking when I say: What if you don't have fingers to print?
I don't see any reason for all the uproar. What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?
"What if you don't have fingers to print?"
You use you're toes. Or nose.
The idea is that now the FBI can track what you do online at the public library. They will surely say that they need to in order to watch out for terrorists. If you believe that you are crazy....
"What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"
Come on now do you really want them to know everything thing you do on there. Even if it, seems anyway...., to be ligit. It's a slippery slope when they start watching everything you do....even if you do nothing wrong. They should not have to invade your privacy.
"What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"
Come on now do you really want them to know everything thing you do on there. Even if it, seems anyway...., to be ligit. It's a slippery slope when they start watching everything you do....even if you do nothing wrong. They should not have to invade your privacy.
"What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"
Come on now do you really want them to know everything thing you do on there. Even if it, seems anyway...., to be ligit. It's a slippery slope when they start watching everything you do....even if you do nothing wrong. They should not have to invade your privacy.
Perhaps they havnt seen this site ?
CCC How to fake fingerprints?
http://www.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren.xml?language=en
Perhaps they havnt seen this site ?
CCC How to fake fingerprints?
http://www.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren.xml?language=en
You are all criminals:
This whole thing sprang from a case of a man who was seen fondling himself at the computer. The cops were called but the guy already got away. The cops then asked for the name of the guy using the computer at the time of the incident, but the library had no log of who is using it. So the only action they could come up with was this. Now every one is treated as a criminal.
The public libraries where I live have gone to hell because of the vast amount of space they've devoted to computers. People sit at these terminals for hours (despite a log-in system allowing only one hour per day per patron) engaged (thanks to the tax payer dollar) in absolute nonsense. They play games, they look at light pornography, they shout back and forth to each other, they play music over the computer speakers, they play music over their headphones so loudly that you'd think it was coming from the speakers... I'm sorry, but I couldn't care less that these people are mostly poor. I'm poor myself. Libraries (and library employees) shouldn't have to shoulder the burden of loiterers or, for that matter, even job searchers. A library is supposed to be a kind of sanctuary--for, ah, *reading*. If people were just "checking their email" occassionally, there would be no problem. But I don't think I've ever, ever seen someone simply pop into a chair, check their email, and then be on their way. And is it really such a good thing, incidentally, that everyone feels the need to simulate ADD by checking their email every three and a half minutes?
People who use free internet access aren't usually the types of people we'd let use our computers at home if they just happened by. Think of it this way: The systems at the library are paid for by you, the citizen. If you have a huge number of unknown users you present yourself with a large potential for government liability in the event one of these unknown users is doing something illegal. Then the government has to defend itself in court (more of your money spent), and if its defense doesn't hold up it'll have to implement something like this by edict anyway. I don't think biometrics is the way to go (a little overkill), but user logging is actually a requirement for most publicly funded internet access systems. Since it requires proof of local citizenship to be able to get a library card the easy and less expensive way to maintain this type of security shouldn't involve biometrics... More like a library card mag strip reader coupled with a PIN. Cheap and just as effective as an ATM card. Since you already have to give up this information to get the card having to provide the card to be able to use the computers won't be too much to ask for.
Submit, dear sheeple, submit. Don't you realize these ever-encroaching erosions are *cumulative*?