Tuesday, March 6, 2012

New Hampshire Rep. Introduces Bill Preventing Banks from Using Fingerprints

Should you ever have to give a thumbprint to cash a check? (Nashua Telegraph)
Two years after a controversy arose because Bank of America required non-customers to get fingerprinted before cashing checks, one legislator wants to make sure it can’t happen again.

“The banks are saying ‘We need this to get the criminals,’ but in the process they’re treating all the citizens of New Hampshire as criminals,” said Rep. James Webb, R-Derry.

He is co-sponsor of a bill, HB 1262, “prohibiting banks from requiring blood samples, fingerprints, and DNA samples in order to complete a banking transaction.”
Paper checks are a very insecure method of conducting financial transactions and this is true for both parties to the transaction. The person writing the check gives away a piece of paper with a substantial amount of the information necessary for identity theft and the person (or entity) receiving the check takes certain risks of non-payment.

Check fraud is rampant and without a fingerprint, enforcing the laws against it is extremely difficult.

A person with no relationship to a bank that wants a bank to hand them cash in exchange for a piece of paper is going to be required to leave enough information behind to give the police a reasonable chance of tracking them down in the event they are perpetrating a fraud. If it's not a fingerprint, it'll be something else such as a scan of a drivers license. A person unwilling to do that either shouldn't take a check or they should be prepared to pay fees in order to assume part of the risk of a bogus transaction.