Swipe
«Swipe Bar»

«Swipe Bar» is a participatory, social and critical concept based on the easily accessible digital information provided by barcodes and chips embedded in personal documents. The group questions the current mentality of US adminstration to gather as much data on individuals as possible.

Statements from the Web site:
«Swipe is a nomadic and technologically empowered bar that serves up a lot more than just wine and spirits.

Swipe Bar is an American concept. We are taking advantage of the latest data collection technologies available to us and applying sophisticated analytical tools to build our revenue and guarantee your security.

Swipe is using state-of-the-art equipment developed in cooperation with the American Assoication of Motor Vehicle Administrators to read any information encoded in the magnetic stripe or barcode of a driver's license.
We can use our equipment to read other cards too, like credit cards, health insurance cards, shopper loyalty cards and university IDs.

With one quick swipe or scan, our machine verifies that a customer's ID meets the minimum age requirement for alcohol and tobacco products and that the information on the front of the card has not been altered.

This helps us maintain a safe and legal environment. With 100% confidence we can say, «Only those we want drinking at our bar will be!»