A bill proposed by the Alberta government that will allow bars to collect patrons’ personal information infringes on people’s privacy and likely won’t make bars any safer, say privacy advocates.

“I don’t think we should live in a police state,” says Stephen Jenuth, president of the Alberta Civil Liberties and Privacy Association.

Frank Work, Alberta’s Privacy Commissioner, is skeptical whether the bill will make Alberta bars any safer, although he is giving the bill his “guarded support.”

If passed, Bill 42 will allow bar staff to collect the name, age (but not birth date) and photograph of any patron coming through their doors. And that information will be shared with other bar owners to keep “problem patrons” out of their establishments.

“I’m not sure it follows that people will behave better simply because you have their name,” Work says. “A lot of behaviour that happens in bars is certainly idiotic, but is this information just going produce a list of idiots? And if it’s just a list of idiots, how does that make a place safer?”

Police would also have access to the bars’ information databases although they are not certain what they would use the information for.

“At this point it’s difficult to say,” Superintendent Trevor Daroux says. “There may be situations where that information would be used but I can’t say at this time. Anytime the community decides to work with the police at making a licensed establishment safer that’s a very positive thing for the community.”

Last year, Tantra Nightclub was at the center of a privacy complaint after scanning patrons’ driver’s licenses. The Privacy Commissioner ordered Tantra to stop scanning licenses and to destroy personal records because it was “an unreasonable amount of information.”

Work is cautiously supporting Bill 42 because it limits the information bars can collect. “We’ve had a lot of issues about bars scanning people’s driver’s licenses and I think that’s too much information for them to be collecting,” he says.

Paul Vickers, who owns Tantra and numerous other local restaurants and bars, has been collecting information on his patrons for 15 years, which he says has helped keep gangs and organized crime out of his bars.

“I think it is a good thing for the police department because it gives them some teeth to do their job and it makes a safer bar for the customer and a safer bar for my staff,” he says.

The proposed bill allows bars to put patrons on a blacklist, which could be shared with other bars, if their actions “are detrimental to the orderly operation of the premises,” or threaten the safety of patrons or staff.

Privacy advocates are concerned what criteria will be used to blacklist people. “If you accidentally knock a glass over and it breaks on the floor, you could fall under the definition of being detrimental to the orderly operation of the premises,” privacy lawyer George Wowk of Burnet, Duckwort and Palmer says.

The privacy commissioner hopes bar owners will draft guidelines on how they will select people for the blacklist.“If they’re going to use it for every annoying thing, it’s going to be useless because you don’t know why someone is on the list and it will lose its credibility,” Work says.

Although the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission says its inspectors will police the collection and use of patron information, Jenuth is concerned bars could readily use the information for marketing and other purposes not intended by the bill.

“These people are there to make money and to expect that they won’t use the information for reasons other than what it’s collected for is inconceivable,” he says, adding, “I expect that it will be improperly used.”

The commissioner expressed the same concern. “The bill is pretty clear that the only purpose they can use this information for is law enforcement and safety, so theoretically there is no question… but there are lots of ways around it,” Work says. “If the bar happened to sell its list of names to a beer company or something I wouldn’t necessarily know it happened unless someone complained.”

Jenuth says people shouldn’t willingly provide this information because it puts their personal information at risk for identity theft. “If it means people decide they aren’t going to drink at bars that collect this information, I think that’s an appropriate thing to do.”

As well, the city recently announced a bar watch program, similar to one in Vancouver run by bar owners, requiring all bar members to install security cameras, post their policies and “not tolerate any form of criminal activity.”

Vickers says that he regularly scans driver’s licenses at his bars in British Columbia and has never ha\d a complaint. He thinks that the general public feels safer knowing the technology is in place.

“We’re lined up, we’re some of the busiest places and there’s a reason for that,” he says.