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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Boycott the Royal Bank! Campaign Builds Against Finger Scanning - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Boycott the Royal Bank! 

﻿<br﻿>﻿Campaign Builds Against Finger Scanning 

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﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, September 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


Finger scanning the creation of a high-tech identity card for every person based upon an electronic scan of their finger print -- is one of the most ominous uses of new technology. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

In Ontario, fingerscanning is being introduced as a means of tracking and identifying welfare recipients. That system has already been imposed on people on welfare in San Francisco. In February the US Congress began discussing a bill that would use fingerscanning to develop a centralized database of personal information on every person living in the country. This information is meant to be made available to many people, including anyone claiming to be a potential employer. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Things don't stop there. There are serious plans to expand biometric ID to other areas. Mytec, a Canadian computer technology corporation, hopes to implement it for driver's licenses, healthcare, voting, credit cards, immigration, and Internet Banking. According to a video it has produced for shareholders, the Royal Bank has specific hopes for the future that include putting electronic implants into prisoners' bodies to track them while they are on day parole. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As a result of such oppressive and demeaning attempts at invasion of privacy, a number of groups are beginning to mount a campaign against fingerscanning in general and the Royal Bank in particular. One of the groups in the forefront of this campaign is the Guelph Coalition for Social Justice. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The Guelph coalition has chosen to focus on the Royal Bank. In particular, they are building a campaign among university and college students to take their student loans away from the Royal. More than any other bank in Canada, the Royal Bank depends upon individual accounts and small businesses. One of the strengths of this campaign is that it has a lot of student support, and student loans are extremely vulnerable to the Royal Bank. They can also be quite easily transferred. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The Royal is especially vulnerable because it has so much at stake with bringing Mondex cash cards to North America (with Guelph as the test site). They can hardly afford to have the major privacy issue associated with fingerscanning welfare recipients brought to light when many people are already saying that Mondex reeks of "Big Brother". 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

They are clearly frightened about the possible effects of activism against fingerscanning: when the University of Guelph voted that the Royal Bank would be the only bank not allowed on campus to register new students for loans, the local management was absolutely livid and threatened to withdraw funding to the university. (This threat lost significant power when the theatre group at risk decided that they could stand to lose $4,000 rather than compromise their principles.) Since then, national CEOs including Brett Fleming -- who has been heavily involved in negotiating the contract -- have been unsuccessfully harassing the Board to reverse its decision. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The Guelph coalition is also discussing tactics like lobbying unions to leave the Royal Bank; attempting to fingerprint "officials"; having local theatres run a week of futuristic films such as "1984" and "The Handmaid's Tale"; and using street theatre to present the bank with a citizen's arrest for crimes against humanity. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

There are also serious efforts being made to broaden the campaign beyond Guelph, especially by building it on university campuses across the province. Groups such as the Metro Toronto Social Planning Council, Ontario Social Safety Network, Ontario Coalition for Social Justice, and Electronic Frontier Canada are being lobbied to commit support to this issue and are already sharing their research on fingerscanning with the Guelph coalition. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿For more information, contact Sarah Vance or Orenda Davis, 

88 Dufferin St., Guelph, ON N1H 4A3. 

By phone, call (519)763-6726, 

or email to svance@uoguelph.ca or odavis@uoguelph.ca. 

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