If all someone asks for is photo ID, I’ll give them an employee photo ID that has my face & name. If they insist on seeing something with my birthdate, I have a federal ID with my face, name & bday… and a couple other things, but no SSN, no address, etc.

No purchase is worth putting up with the invasion of privacy & potential identity theft from giving away your PII. I’ve even been known to photoshop numbers on a copy of my SSN card when someone insists on having a copy. (It’s not a law, just company policy. My policy is not to give out sensitive info.)

For the record, I’m 41 years old. I’m told I look younger, but not under 19 younger. My hair is going white. I have wrinkles. I’m obviously middle aged.

Anyway, I grabbed my wallet back, told her to forget it and left. I won’t be back.

I’ve checked the Target website for corporate contact info but not found anything. Does anyone have an address that can be used to complain?

I happen to use nicotine replacement products and have had similar issues with Target. Cashiers used to enter the fake birth date I gave them verbally. I believe the register software has changed recently because the cashiers now say they need my driver’s license or they can’t complete the sale. Since I’m almost 60 years old (and look it) I say, “Get the manager.” The first time, the “manager” (probably a department or shift supervisor) punched something in, and no birth date was required. The second time, the “manager” tried to give me the same line as the cashier and I told him it was illegal to demand personal and private information from me since I don’t look under 30 (the law in California) and in fact look almost 3 times as old as the required 21. I then stared at his name tag, and asked for him to put his refusal to complete the transaction in writing. (He asked if I wanted the refusal to be typed; I don’t know why, but holographic is way better in a court of law; maybe he wanted to leave or speak to his superior.) I then said, “I can give you a birth date” because he was obviously looking for a way out. I gave him a birth date (not mine) and the transaction was completed.

I wish an attorney would chime in. I believe Target has a right to ask but not demand DOB. I don’t think they have the right to scan your DL.

I don’t want my name and dob sitting in Target’s data base.

Next time, I’ll pay cash and let them see my dob on my dl but maintain possession of it, and see what happens.

I have not had my identity stolen (that I know of), but I have had my credit card number stolen. An individual used just the number, not the card itself, to steal about $2500 before the bank called with their suspicions. On another occasion, our card info was stolen from an online retailer and used fraudulently. So, I’m aware that things happen with “safely stored” information. I’d encourage all of us to do what you did and also tell the retailer why, so they can change what they are doing.

Thanks for your comment, Sj.

Gilbert, AZ April 7, 2009.

I purchased a bottle of wine. Upon checkout, the clerk asked me to hand her my Drivers License (ID check). I am 49 years old, I don’t look 21. I look 49.

The clerk did not read my license. She swiped it in a new card reader on her register.

I promptly asked her what she had just done. She said, “I am verifying your age.” I said, “you can read my license – my birth date is printed on it. Why did you scan my license?”

She turned icy cold, ignored me and said “thank you for shopping at target.”

I was outraged.. I demanded to know why they scanned my license.. I then realized they just scanned my debit card and drivers license… I just gave target everything about my to give to BIG BROTHER.. but big brother already has this info..

Except now I know.. they are tracking our behavior.. if we purchase guns, ammo, tobacco, alcohol, etc.. we go onto the “watch list”. Talk about Darwinian..

Warn everyone that stores like TARGET are now agents of the government, tracking us and invading our privacy.

I appreciate your sharing of your experience, K. There is a lot of interesting info in your comment. The one thing I get hung up on is the idea that Target wants to limit its liability for selling alcohol to minors (a good goal), but does not record the information that’s scanned. This seems very difficult to believe. That liability for selling to minors is a big deal, so they need to cover their rear end. Why take the info, then discard it at the time of purchase? They would want to keep that information in case of a subpoena later.

I think I_H8_Target_Now has a point that unless one has held a position working on the back-office or server-side functions of this system, one can not speak with certainty about how the data is kept or discarded. That’s why an official response from Target would be helpful.

That’s disappointing PC, to hear the practice is becoming more wide-spread. Track everyone!

Please let us know, Tom, what you find out. My email to them from their website went unanswered. At least they may be getting the point that people find this over-reaching practice offensive.

Other stores that follow this same policy are Nike, Brookstone, and Express. You need to check the return policy now, and boycott stores that require this invasion of privacy – to ‘keep track of returns’, according to the store manager.

I find your message peculiar. In the first part of your message, it sounds like you are someone who works inside a retail store at the point of sale. That type of employee would have absolutely no way of knowing what information is being stored when an ID is scanned.

Unless you are a programmer, database analyst, or similar, who has current inside knowledge of Target’s point of sale software, you have absolutely no way of knowing what data is being stored when a card is swiped. This is exactly the point that we are objecting to – as customers, we have no way of knowing whether or not the data is stored.

You are naive to assume you know what information is being retained.