Patronscan wants cities to require bars to scan your ID with its service so it can maintain a secret, unaccountable blacklist

Patronscan is the leading provider of ID-scanning/verification services to bars and restaurants, and one of its selling points is that it allows its customers to create shared blacklists of undesirable customers who can then be denied services at every other establishment that uses its services.

Susie Cagle (previously) delves into Patronscan's practices and the risks the company presents to privacy and fairness. For example, Patronscan's database contains the names, addresses and other details of people who patronize LGBTQ bars, or fundraisers for political causes. What's more, Patronscan allows law enforcement to access its records without warrants.

More disturbing is the creation of shared blacklists of undesirable customers: bar staff can block anyone for any reason, and while Patronscan's product allows staff to list a reason ("Assault," "disturbance," "drug possession," "drug trafficking," "fake ID," "fighting," "gang violence," "public intoxication," "sexual assault," "theft") there is no need to provide evidence for these claims, and your due process or right of appeal are based on the company's terms of service, not your constitutional rights. Once you're added to Patronscan's blacklist, you are barred from any participating establishment.

But even if there was some system of private justice you could appeal to, it might not matter: bar staff can also add people to the blacklist and give the reason as "other" or "private" -- 60% of the people blacklisted in Sacramento were blocked for "private" reasons.

This opens up the door to widespread, illegal discrimination by racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic bar staff, whose blacklistings will ripple out to many other establishments (Patronscan has captured scans from 200,000,000 people in sixty countries). Read the rest