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From Casinos to Counterterrorism
Jessie Beaudion, surveillance chief at the Stratosphere hotel and casino in Las Vegas, watches gamblers through security cameras. The U.S. government has used casino surveillance techniques in counterterrorism work.
(By Lee Zaichick For The Washington Post)
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Steil, a product manager for Progressive Gaming International, which developed the chips, expects all casinos to use RFID-enabled chips soon -- to detect counterfeiters, to keep track of chip flow at tables, to know instantly how much a player has bet, won or lost.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"We're providing so much data to the casinos, they're drooling for it," he said.
In the outside world, counterterrorism and Homeland Security officials are looking for ways RFID technology can help them, too. RFID chips are in new passports, EZPasses, credit cards and building passes. Soon they might be in clothing.
All this electronic data is trackable, as are text messages sent from cellphones or instant messages from laptops. Following the trail could uncover a terrorist network.
Or an innocent group of, say, bird-watchers.
"We often hear of the surveillance technology du jour, but what we're seeing now in America is a collection of surveillance technologies that work together," said Barry Steinhardt, the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty project director. "It isn't just video surveillance or face recognition or license plate readers or RFID chips. It's that all these technologies are converging to create a surveillance society."
'We Know Who You Are'
Under the elegant chandeliers at Caesars Palace, 10,000 people a day willingly give up personal information -- name, address, birthday -- and allow their gambling habits to be tracked so they can win free hotel rooms and show tickets. In nearly a decade, 40 million have signed up for Harrah's Total Rewards loyalty card.
Harrah's Entertainment, owner of Ceasars Palace and the industry leader in data mining for marketing, can then customize the gambler's experience. A guest celebrating her birthday might insert her card in a slot machine and be surprised by a promotions manager bearing a birthday card and a cookie.
"It's really about, how do we convince these people to be more loyal and give them a sense of 'We know who you are,' " said David W. Norton, senior vice president at Harrah's.
Guests may or may not see that as a good thing.
In December 2003, faced with a warning that terrorists were about to attack Las Vegas, the FBI asked hotels, rental-car agencies and airlines for customer data. Some balked, but others produced the data, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes when presented with a subpoena.
The data sweep turned up no leads. One gambler who was there at the time said he approved of the tactic. "The only people who have anything to worry about are the people who have something to hide," said Dale Weinstein, a Los Angeles media market consultant sitting at a Caesar's Palace slot machine where he had just won a $2,000 jackpot.
