ID checks required at SEOne Club (Torture Gardens) (41)

I suspect it wont be long before it does become a nationwide condition, but even if not the number of places that already have such systems, combined with a time-stamped database.........

As for the ID card idea not taking of because the country is broke, since when did the financial viability of an idea ever have an impact on the current (or almost any) government.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right. Elise Kraft, The Siege.
People really need protecting from those who want to protect them.

As we have discussed before, that's probably going to be through the 'sex encounter establishment' liscencing thing.

Why poison your liver when I could eat it for you?

No. it is currently a proposed condition of on-premises alcohol licences in parts of Essex that all entry points are covered by cctv. Other local authourities are also considering similar ideas

ETA, a link that verifies this statement. It has also been reported in This Is London when an Islington landord appealed against this poicy to the data commisioner.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right. Elise Kraft, The Siege.
People really need protecting from those who want to protect them.

Edited 24 Apr 09, 8:42 PM by kisses_for_me

As far as I know this particular club has an ID checking system which involves all attendees' photo ID being scanned into a database at the door. Not just showing it to someone. According to the guys at Shunt next door, it's a regulation which Southwark Council have enforced on the clubs, and has cost them (Shunt) £3k to install. (SEOne is the name of the venue where TG is being held.) Where the data goes I have no idea, but I doubt any guarantees about that are going to be given to anyone attending the club.

Personally I don't like it. I think it's dodgy as fuck. And the more used we get to being ID'd in daily life the more ready we'll be to accept other tracking systems and ID card systems in future.

I don't have any photo ID except my passport & I'm certainly not going to take that clubbing with me...

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win" - Gandhi

There's more to come on this next week (so keep watching the Register) and therefore I'll be careful about how much I say now.

The issue - the problem - is not over looking at id. This is the point that many people miss in respect of the proposed national id scheme. There are actually two issues: first, whether we want a culture where a range of people of varying degrees of officialdom can stop us from time to time and demand to see our papers.

Many Brits just don't like that idea.

Second is the idea that data will get pulled together into some huge receptacle where government and police can trawl it at will. That's the second, more serious and often overlooked objection to national id.

The problem with these club scanners goes a bit beyond that. At least a national database will be relatively secure (as secure as any government data is)...and whilst we may joke about government security, most days of the week, I'd bet government over some club management, no matter HOW professional they reckoned they were.

And what are the dangers if your id is in a non-secure database. Well...imagine your name, address, maybe passport number, photo, one or two other derived identifiers sitting in a non-secure base where it can be accessed by unscrupulous people....

Would you really not mind? Because one of the government's main concerns when it comes to id is criminal or terrorist elements stealing data like the above and using it to impersonate other people.

Not just one club database, but dozens of little bases for club, pubs and retailers. Does that feel safe?

Kisses: I've also been looking at the cctv story and in theory, the Information Commissioner does not like the idea of cctv being pushed as a blanket solution to problems in an area. The Met have been asked to revert to justifying requests for cctv on a case by case basis...but how long they will remember to do that is another matter.

Regards,

John

I meant the membership entrance requirements for ID and having to trust people who can't keep their bogs clean to safely manage a database of perves, and all that, not the cctv.

Mind you, that would have me stay away as well.

Bet that's why they are doing it.

Why poison your liver when I could eat it for you?

Every loyalty card we sign up for logs our preferences onto a database. When we pay for goods by credit or debit card our purchases are recorded, our financial trail follows us.

Every time we make a phone call from our mobile phone we can be tracked and pinpointed to within metres. From our landlines a record is kept of all the calls we made, to which numbers.

There are CCTV cameras on many buildings, all motorways and many other roads.

Everything is date and time stamped.

Anyone with the means, legitimate or otherwise, can track almost every movement we make if they have the desire to do so.

Short of moving to a remote island, never using any electronic communication of any kind, being self sufficient food wise, there is no way of reversing the activities of Big Brother.

It actually surprises me how easily we accept, don't even think twice quite often, about how the minutiae of our every day lives is recorded and we disregard it as insignifcant.

If you've nothing to hide there's nothing to fear, unless of course someone wishes to mess with your life in some way. However we cannot base the way we live on such paranoia, such information collation has gone too far to be reversed.

I've no doubt that both government and its agents will justify every action they take, the only question is how long we will tolerate such behaviour, how much of our freedom we are prepared to sacrifice to obtain security, safety and convenience.

"I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardise in any degree, the common rights of its citizens."

Abraham Lincoln

Having various clubs store personal, identifiable data is not something I see a need for. Shown yes, recorded and scanned in no.

"The most powerful sexual organ in the body is our brain, open your mind and allow your fantasies free reign. Mutual pleasure between consenting adults is a wonderful thing."

A most excellent post.

I have no issue with presenting ID for a club, verifying who I am, I do have an issue of clubs keeping my details on a database which can verify that I attended this club. Nightclubs and pubs don't do it. As far as I am aware most private members clubs don't either.

OK so I may be paranoid about the proposed ID cards, I amy dislike the idea of staff in a pub potentially knowing my name and address and knowing at the same time that I am not at home.

As people have pointed out the potential for outing from highly personal details held on a BDSM club database is unsettling. Yes I know it'd be counter productive for a club to out or threaten to out any of it's members, but no database or hard-copy filing system is ever totally secure. Yes it's laudable that they want to take steps to help improve the safety of the club and their members, but there are other less disturbing methods of doing this.

If this were a few years back and it was a gay club proposing to do this, considering the spate of highly public "outings" in the press, it would have a seriously negative impact on the numbers attending.

As a group, people who are into Fetish or BDSM are in a similar position to the LGBT community was in the 70's and 80's. We are at risk from being outed. We are at risk from persecution and witch hunts. We are at risk of being tarred with the same brush as other "deviants".

If outed, we run the risk of losing our jobs, of losing friends, of familial estrangement and at risk of other negative effects of unwanted publicity. Why would any organisation, munch or club that deals with BDSM wish to increase the risk of it's members or attendees being outed?

"A life without pain has no meaning" Athrur Schopenhauer
"Rope, rope, rope, rope, rope..." It's sort of like the Dwarvish song "Gold", only it's about rope.