Fergus Cassidy

Fickle finger

SOME THINGS are better left unsaid, but I have to get something off my chest. I have been inside the new shopping centre in Dundrum, the phoenix of Dublin suburbs.

It's current swagger, encouraged by pension fund managers and propelled by Luas talk, proved hard to resist. The entrance sign was getting closer and I needed an excuse fast.

A man in a yellow jacket with 'security' written on the back beckoned me in. The indicator light in the car started flashing and in the nick of time it came to me. I would have a look at what technology had in store.

A lightning fast visit. Like one of those 'tiger' attacks. Get in and out quickly alright, except don't stop to buy anything. Consider it as an anti-Celtic tiger attack.

As I drove Jonah-like toward the towering, rectangle of red-bricked modernity, my excuse to visit changed rapidly to conviction.

The entrance to the car park had two ticket dispensers, complete with monitors showing an outstretched arm attached to a shell-shocked face. I got the feeling that everything I did would be recorded from here on in.

The spiralling road leading down, deep into the building's bowels were festooned with cameras. Inside the Yellow car park (or was it Red?), the space stretched out forever. The whir of the air conditioning system sounded like an airport and tiny overhead lights wouldn't have been amiss on a runway. Except these lights show green when a parking space is available.

So high-tech, so good and on up to the main attraction. Men with smart suits, microphone buttonholes and ear pieces are noticeable. The supermarket barrier opened automatically and the aisles of plenty lay before me.

I negotiated the circuit with ease but on the home straight I spun out of control and had to hit the brakes hard. "Self-service check-out only after 11pm", the nervous employee announced to trolley-wielding customers. Nothing for it now but to buy something and check this check-out out.

I scan, it speaks. It tells me how much to pay and accepts cards or cash. It gave change and thanked me for my custom. While most of the check-outs in the store were the usual variety, I couldn't help wondering for how long.

That's the way technology seeps into our lives. It starts off as a low-key and voluntary alternative, brochured as both modern and futuristic. Bank ATMs were once heralded as a convenient alternative to the branch. Now the branch is being replaced by a website.

Fine, no Luddite me. But all these machine-human interactions rely heavily on identification. If that isn't guaranteed, the systems are worthless. So security is proclaimed as something which concerns us all.

Really? Potential savings and the drive to increase profits is what attracts business to technologies in the first place. Secure systems are important, but the security of the bottom line is paramount.

In a case reported in the Irish Times last week, workers at an Irish company noticed that cables were being installed in a warehouse. When asked about it, the management said it was for a new alarm system.

The cables were for cameras and the company ended up in the Labour Court, which said it had damaged a good relationship with its workers by its actions. The cameras are staying put and a Euro4500 ($5681) donation to charity makes for a rewarding bottom line outcome.

Another situation arose recently in Dublin where an employer proposed installing a biometric system for its employees. This technology involves an electronic scan of a thumb or finger and is the next big thing in the growing security industry. By 2006 all EU passports will contain biometric data.

In the United States, biometrics scanning has arrived in places like gyms and tanning shops. Supposedly concerned about customers swapping membership cards, these businesses are turning to biometrics. "It's for our computer system", said one tanning shop employee when asked to explain.

Technology has moved way beyond the circumstances in 1988 when the Data Protection Act was first enacted in Ireland. Incoming technologies like biometrics must mean having to take a fresh and broader look at privacy.

Not just at how personal information gathered is used, but whether it should be collected at all.

Three years ago, the owner of one of the first supermarkets in the US to install a finger scanning biometric system at the check-outs declared: "The main thing is, it's fast, it's easy and it's secure".

He must have been talking to himself.