Illustrations: Erik Carter

This ID Scanner Company is Collecting Sensitive Data on Millions of Bargoers

PatronScan says it sells security. Privacy advocates worry it’s selling mass surveillance.

We’ve all seen it, and some of us have lived it: A bar patron mouths off to a bouncer, tags a wall, gets in a fight, or is just too drunk and disorderly. They’re not just kicked out for the night, but “eighty-sixed” — permanently banned from the establishment.

Now imagine if a bar owner could flag that ejected patron digitally, documenting their transgression for other bar owners to see and placing them on a nightlife equivalent of a no fly list that stretches across city, state, and even international borders.

PatronScan allows bars to do just that. The PatronScan kiosk, placed at the entrance of a bar or nightlife establishment, can verify whether an ID is real or fake, and collect and track basic customer demographic data. For bars, accurate ID scanners are valuable tools that help weed out underage drinkers, protecting the establishments’ liquor licenses from fines and scrupulous state alcohol boards. But PatronScan’s main selling point is security.

The system allows a business to maintain a record of bad customer behavior and flag those individuals, alerting every other bar that uses…