ID Scanners At Bars, Clubs Reveal More Than Age

Every weekend, thousands of thirsty patrons crowd into Borderland bars and clubs.

If you’re 21 or older, you can drink that martini, swig a beer or slam a shot. If you haven’t reached that golden age, a little wizardry with an x-acto knife won’t get you too far these days.

That’s because at a growing number of establishments, customers hand over their driver’s licenses to security personnel who swipe them through a sleek black machine.

“If it gives us a checkmark, that means they’re 21 and up and it means they’re good and ready to go,” Victor Mendoza said. “If it gives us a circle, a red circle with a line across it, it means they’re underage.”

But most customers have no idea that the machine also pulls up a person’s address and other personal details from a data strip on the back of the license. Even height, eye color and sometimes Social Security Number are registered.

A lot of bar owners bought the machines to keep out underage drinkers, but they soon realized they could build a database of personal information.

“I had no idea about that kinda stuff or the information they check,” Marco Rodriguez said. “I thought it was just the age and whether or not I can buy the beer.”

Even Fort Bliss soldiers who use their military identification card have been warned about the scanning process.

“My birthday, my Social Security, those are all things acquired to steal an identity,” Pfc. Ryan Synder said. “We’ve been warned as to, if somebody asks to scan our ID such as a bartender or something, not to do it.”

If a patron doesn’t allow their ID to be scanned, bar or club managers can look on the birthdate on the card and tell whether they’re old enough to be on the premises, ABC-7 was told by a bar manager.

Border City Ale House manager Sal Hernandez said he deals with nervous patrons all the time.

“They come up with these concerned faces like, ‘Uhhhh, am I going to get arrested? Are they gonna find me now?'” Hernandez said. “The answer to that is no, of course not.”

El Paso Police say they have never called any bars or clubs to see if certain names show up on their customer lists, but officials said they could.

And just down I-10 at Club 101, managers said a more sophisticated scanner lets them put some of that information to good business use.

“Let’s say we’re not getting that many zip codes from the West Side. We know OK, we gotta advertise there more,” Juan Rodriguez said. “It’s being more dollar savvy where to spend our money.”

In Texas, it is illegal to sell that information, but it is not against the law to use it, although Rodriguez said his club only hangs on to information that gives them a profile of their clientele. Also, only the owners and managers have access to a database that’s not even connected to the Internet.

Still for a machine that was initially designed to strike fear in the hearts of underage beer guzzlers, it’s doing a lot to stir up new fears about privacy.