Great Taste, Less Privacy 

A patron walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender asks to see some ID. Without asking permission, the barkeep swipes the driver's license through a card reader and the device flashes a green light approving the order.

The bartender is just verifying the card isn't a fake, right? Yes, and perhaps more.

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Visitors to an art exhibit at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts got more than their martinis when they ordered drinks at a bar inside the gallery's entrance. Instead of pretzels and peanuts, they were handed a receipt containing the personal data found on their license, plus all the information that could be gleaned from commercial data-mining services and voter registration databases like Aristotle. Some patrons also got receipts listing their phone number, income range, marital status, housing value and profession. For added effect, the receipt included a little map showing the location of their residence.

The magnetic strips and bar codes on the back of most state's driver's licenses contain more information than people think. The way the swipers use the information might surprise them as well: Some bars and restaurants scan driver's licenses to catch underage drinkers and fake IDs, but they're also using the information for marketing purposes.

Last year artists and producers Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer built the Swipe exhibit in Pittsburgh to show what's on the cards we all carry.

To reinforce the point, they also launched a website last Monday with a free online suite of tools that lets visitors decipher the bar codes on their IDs, calculate the worth of their data and request copies of their personal files from commercial data-mining companies like Acxiom and ChoicePoint.

"We wanted to give people back their data, to empower them to prevent having their information swiped," Singer said.

While many patrons thought the museum project was fun, Singer said they were "pretty stupefied."

"We put what we thought was the least sensitive data on a monitor over the bar, showing maps and a person's name and age. But they were upset about that; especially about their age," Singer said.

"We didn't do it to offend anyone," Schulte said, "but sometimes that's the best way to get through people's defenses. We wanted them to be aware that the data was easy to get."

More than 40 states use magnetic strips and bar codes on licenses. Depending on the type of code used, some cards can store up to 2,000 bytes. In some states, a driver's Social Security number also serves as the license number, so that sensitive nugget is also on the card. And Kentucky has embedded a digital image of the driver's photo in the bar code, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, or AAMVA, which sets voluntary standards for states to use when creating their licenses.

Bar codes on licenses generally make life easier for law enforcement. Police scan the cards during traffic stops to avoid scribbling the information on a citation report. They also can more easily retrieve information from the computer in the squad car.

Bars and restaurants scan the codes to catch underage drinkers using fake IDs. Convenience stores use them to verify the age of cigarette buyers. Airports, hospitals and government buildings are beginning to scan driver's licenses for security. And businesses can use driver's license records for legitimate business purposes such as verifying identities.

"But is it legitimate to then store the information and use it for marketing purposes, or however they see fit without regulation?" said Singer.

Using the information, a bar can track how often patrons come in, the hours they arrive and even identify those who arrive in groups (if the cards of friends are swiped in sequence). The bar can query, for example, how old the audience for a particular hired band was or how many were male or female.

Bars also can combine the info with sales data if a patron purchases drinks and food with a credit card. The combination of age, weight, gender and liquor sales could help a bar determine what kinds of drinks to market to which crowd.

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