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Scan my license? You must be joking

When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago I had to visit a couple of different buildings for various meetings. At the first building, I was asked for identification. As I am English and not North Korean, I don't carry identification papers with me when I walk down the street and my British passport and British driving licence (neither of which the security guard could have verified even I had shown them to him) were locked up securely back in the hotel safe, so I presented my standard US identification document. This an old building pass from the previous Consult Hyperion office in midtown. It expired a couple of years ago, but it has my picture on it and it says David Birch it was accepted without question and I was allowed in.

When I went into second building, I was asked to scan my driver's license! They had a scanner on the counter to read the barcode on the back of US driver's licenses. Obviously I don't have a US driver's license, so I showed them my expired building pass again, I was given entry to the building.

If I did have the US driver's license, then there's no way I would have let them scan it.

Apart from the obvious fact that my ability to drive is unrelated to whether I have been invited to a meeting or not, nothing that is on my driving licence (except perhaps my name, which had already told the guy on the desk) is any of their business and by handing over my personal information to yet another random database held by yet another random company, I was vastly increasing the chance of my licence data and my personal details being being stolen.

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