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Possibly controversial opinion, but this sounds reasonable. The flags they can put on customers are, “violence, assault, destruction of property, sexual assault, fraud, and theft.” Those aren’t petty gripes like, “rude,” or, “poor tipper.” I was bar staff for a while, and I’d have wanted to know if the guy I was serving got violent the last time he went out.
That being said, I could see how this system could be abused. If one power-tripping bouncer claims you sexually assaulted someone, and no one will serve you anymore, that’s bullshit. Some regulations around how businesses use these databases would be good.
Yes totally reasonable some corpos and business get to claim you are a criminal and impose de facto penalties on you.
Your email app will give your messages to other companies, your navigation app will share your exact location with marketers, and your dating app will sell your sexual preferences to the highest bidder, but sure, bars having a way to warn each other which costumers tried to assault a waitress is a bridge to far.
You presume much about what services I use. There is much to be said about the power private corps have over us, the complications of being unable or unwilling to use their services making you a de facto outsider.
I don’t see how these wrongs make another right.
Some of the actions alleged are actual crimes. It is a bad idea to have them handle para-legally. Sure being excluded from visiting bars is a light punishment (for someone actually guilty, completely unfair for an innocent person) but nothing guarantees it will stay there and won’t also be used leaked to prospective employers and other people. In fact the first time you get denied you could very well not be alone and have to convince people you are not a rapist or something.
It’s exactly the sort of information you not want bartenders and bouncers conjuring and trading in.
For anyone like this to be a good thing there needs to be a system of checks and balances. There should be an appeal process that is low effort and low or zero cost. There should also be a verification process by a third party before anything can be added.
Yeah, and a lot of this will depend on how it’s used. If I were still in the service industry and I saw that a guy had been to 20 bars in the last year, and I saw he got flagged at one for violence, I would think, “Well, this doesn’t seem to be a pattern of behavior, maybe he wasn’t the instigator, I’ll keep an eye on him but I’m not too worried.” But I could see a lot of larger places, like clubs, who aren’t hurting for business, just rejecting people who are flagged out of hand. The information seems objectively good to have, but the application could be really problematic.
Nice try feds
Airlines do this too
