--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "David Richards" <drichards@o...>
wrote:
In reference to the posts of privacy and the machines/casinos
tracking the
quality of your play, it would be my belief that you are accepting
the fact
that the casino is monitoring you when you choose to use a player
card.
That is exactly the reason the casinos want you to use a player
card and the
reason they compensate you to try to influence you into using the
player
card. If you play without the player card you might have a better
privacy
issue case, although still unlikely to have any legal merit since
you are in
a public place to begin with.
David
David,
I strongly believe that one should have certain rights of privacy
even in a casino. For instance it is pretty well accepted that
the "eye in the sky" is needed to prevent cheating and insure the
honesty of the games. However I believe that its use be limited to
legitimate security surveillance. The practice of "flyering"
blackjack counters, etc. should not be acceptable. As surveillance
and facial recognition technology gets better and cheaper, its
misuse could become more and more prevalent. So even if you are not
a bj counter, in years to come casino personal could say to
you, "You were out with Mrs. ___ last night, but don't worry we
believe 'what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas' for our zircon level
players." Or if you were to have taken the wrong advise on tipping
limo drivers (previous thread), and once you were blackballed in the
data bank, all cabs passed you by and waitresses ignored you?
In the medical records field HIPAA ensures privacy of medical
records. Compliance is a pain in the ass for those in the medical
field, but something like it is needed to limit the use and
dissemination of casino surveillance. Homeland security will
engender similar concerns. However don't expect your privacy to be
protected just by wishing it. I suggest that those of you in Nevada
contact their local representatives and express concern regarding
misuse of confidential information and surveillance. Nobody wants
to hobble the casino industry legitimately protecting itself (much
as medical records as necessary), but this should not give them
license to expand the use of such information beyond proper bounds.
Perhaps some of you who are wiser than me could suggest how to
define such proper bounds.
David