Frivolous privacy concerns

There is very little that infuriates me more than listening to or reading about whiners who run to human rights commissions or privacy czars over trivial complaints. It is as if they are so bored with life, they have nothing better to do short of playing with themselves.

Recently, there were a number of complaints to Canada's privacy czar because of a growing number of professional programs in universities such as medicine and business now requiring students to give a digital print of their finger, thumb or even scan the veins in their palms to write the high-stakes entrance tests.

The latest detection equipment is the new infrared scan of the blood vessels in one’s palm required by all 266,000 students around the world – 8,000 in Canada – who write the four-hour GMAT admissions test each year for a master's of business administration (MBA) degree.

The equipment is designed to detect cheaters who hire other people to write the test for them. Sometimes the other people disguised themselves in full wig and fake glasses and sometimes the cheaters use a twin or even a spouse. In one case, the husband wrote a test for his wife wearing one of her dresses. He was spotted when his five-o'clock shadow began to show.

MBA students in Canada and the United States are more likely to cheat than students in other disciplines because they believe it is how the business world operates — and because they believe their peers cheat and if they can cheat and get away with it, then why shouldn’t everyone else do it?

In 2006, a study found that 56 per cent of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the previous year, compared with 47 per cent of non-business students. Donald McCabe, lead researcher on the study and business strategy who is also a professor at Rutgers said, "Those numbers are probably under-reported. Since the survey was voluntary, more dishonest students were less likely to fill out the survey, and those who did complete it may have under-reported how much they cheated.” unquote

Jim Fisher, vice-dean of MBA programs at University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management said that he wasn't surprised by the results. He said, “Since MBA students are highly competitive and have a high need for achievement, there is a propensity for those types of behaviour to cheat.” unquote Rick Powers, executive director of the University of Toronto's MBA program said, "It's unfortunate some people want to cheat to get the higher scores you need for better-known programs." unquote

If there was ever a need for a cheat detector in an exam room, the above information is proof that fraud in those rooms exist and the cheats should be detected and expelled from the universities and colleges where they cheated.

When you consider how many corporate leaders and other business types cheat people around the world, it makes one wonder just how many of these creeps cheated their way into passing their exams before they entered the corporate world.

Already palm scans caught one business whiz who had been hired to write the GMAT last year by five different people, including two applicants to the University of Toronto MBA program.

When I was taking my exams in criminology at the University of Toronto in the early 1970s, I, like the many others in that university taking other exams for other courses, had to provide proof as to who we were but the university didn’t have cheat detection equipment like what exists these days. There were only eighteen students accepted in my criminology class and they all attended the exams. However, I didn’t have to provide any ID when I took my final exam in family law while attending Humber/Guelph University in the late 1990s. The professor knew me personally as we were old friends and our class only had nine students and he knew everyone of them also. He supervised our exams.

Many people, including myself support this new type of technology but not everyone agrees with us.

Last summer, Toronto student Ajanthy Arasaratnam, 28, a graduate in journalism was so upset at having to hold her palms before the small detection to write her GMAT exam that she asked the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate the process, claiming that it was as an invasion of her privacy. She said, "I was bothered by having to have my palm scanned for the GMAT test; it was done under duress because you can't write the GMAT test without the palm scan and you can't apply for the program without the test." unquote

She is hoping the privacy commissioner will rule the same way it did two years ago over a complaint that the LSAT entrance test for law school was violating Canadian students' right to privacy by requiring a digital thumbprint. Would you believe it? The commission agreed. Now, the 7,000 Canadians who write the LSAT each year must provide a digital photo, not a thumbprint.

I don’t get it. If providing a digital photo to get into the exam room isn’t an invasion of privacy, then why is submitting your palm image an invasion of privacy? Perhaps it is because when you submit your photo, it is only for an instance whereas your palm image remains in the equipment for a much longer period of time.

As I see it, every student who attends university should submit his or palm for a permanent scan which will remain in the computer bank of the university even when he or she graduates. When it is time for you to take your final exams, you should have to submit your palm to the cheat detector instrument which will automatically compare it with the image stored in the university’s computer bank.

There is an added benefit in keeping a record of the palm image in the university’s computer bank. Once you get your degree, whatever it may be, no one else can claim your degree in your name.

This happened just before I joined the Canadian navy in 1951. On the way across Canada by train as I headed to the navy’s boot camp in Cornwallis in Nova Scotia, I met a Canadian navy padre who served on board the same ship that Fenrdinand Waldo Demara Jr. had also served on as a navy medical officer. The ship the padre and Demera both served on was HMCS Cayuga. (now permanently docked in Hamilton, Ontario) Demara was probably the world's most renown impersonator and a movie was later made about his impersonations. While their ship was off the shores of South Korea, Demara who had passed himself off as a Dr. Joseph Cyr of New Brunswick; was accepted by the navy and immediately placed on that Canadian destroyer as the ship's medical officer. Apparently, according to the padre, this man's work as a surgeon was quite impressive. However, he was discovered to be someone else other than the highly respected Dr. Cyr when the impersonator's exploits were written about in Canada. The Padre was one of the officers present at the hearing held on board the ship. (a few months prior to me meeting the padre) Demara admitted that he was not Dr. Cyr and he also admitted that he wasn't even a doctor. If palm image equipment was in existence then and the university in which the real Dr. Cyr went to had the image of his palm in its computer bank and the navy had such equipment, they could have compared palm images of the two men. Demara would have been detected right away as a fake doctor.

The privacy commissioner's office is also investigating a complaint about the use of digital fingerprints by the MCAT for medical school.

But the GMAT switched from fingerprints to palm scans partly because of the "pejorative subtext to giving fingerprints – that unpleasant overtone that you're being `booked,'" said Dave Wilson, president of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which runs GMATs in 111 countries.

He notes that France, one of the most rigorous protectors of personal privacy, gave the green light to the GMAT's palm scans even though it does not let the MCAT test for medical school make students give their fingerprints.

"Fingerprints help deter students from hiring others to write the MCATs for them – and help prove it when someone does." said Karen Mitchell, senior director of admissions testing services for the Association of American Medical Colleges, which runs the MCATs.

Mitchell said, "In the middle of a test, we've had a student leave for a break and send someone else back in to write the next section that may have a different kind of focus." She added, "The fingerprints are helping us with an investigation right now of an incident that took place in Canada."

However other tests that are used for the broader Graduate Record Examination (GRE) written by 26,000 Canadian students every year for graduate programs including five MBA programs, are alternatives to high-tech screening.

Raymond Nicosia, executive director of the office of testing integrity for Educational Testing Service, which runs the GRE said, "Using government-issue photos and handwriting samples has served us well for 60 years and has been upheld in court." unquote The PCAT admission test for pharmacy doesn’t require more than two pieces of ID.

A fake digital photo can be submitted but you can’t fake your palm or fingerprint image because the exam detection equipment displays the arteries and veins in your palm and they and your fingerprints are distinctly yours and no one elses.

"There was a much more serious feeling around MCAT security – they mean business – but it didn't make me nervous," said Stephanie Lovering, now in first-year pharmacy at U of T. Lovering, now in the first year pharmacy said her university used the PCAT last year and she had to provide a thumbprint for the MCAT each time she entered or left for a break. She needed only her driver's licence for the PCAT. She added, "I think it's great to have these measures in place when you hear about people hiring someone else to write the test. That's not really the characteristic you want to see in future doctors and lawyers and pharmacists, so if this helps prevent that kind of thing, then I'm in favour of it." unquote

There are other whiners who have privacy issues to complain about. I am talking about the use of full body scans at airports.

A new Gallup poll released on January 10th 2010 showed that most Americans approve of airports using full body scanners on passengers at airport security checkpoints.

According to the poll, which surveyed 2,017 adults January 5-6, 78% of Americans approve of the idea of full body scans at airports. Only 20% disapprove.

In addition, 48% said they would not be uncomfortable at all undergoing a full body scan at an airport, while 19% said they wouldn't be too uncomfortable. Meanwhile, 10% said they would be very uncomfortable and 22% said they would be somewhat uncomfortable.

Men generally tended to be the most comfortable with the idea of full body scans, with 57% saying they would not be uncomfortable at all with the scans. Only 36% of women said they would not be uncomfortable at all with the scans. I imagine really obese women would feel more uncomfortable than women which ideal figures.

Americans (and probably everyone else also) seemed to heavily favor full body screenings to pat-downs from airport security. According to the poll, 70% said they would be more uncomfortable with a pat down, while only 22% said they would be more uncomfortable with a scan.

Terrorism around the world is at its highest level in history and the recent event in which the Nigerian fool tried to blow up a plane with explosive chemicals hidden in his underwear on Christmas day last year is proof that we need every possible detection equipment that is available to thwart the efforts of these fools.

I am sure that I speak for everyone when I say that we want to fly in these planes without having to sweat out the trip wondering if we are going to be blown to pieces by the terrorist sitting next to us. How would you feel if your family was killed by such a bomber in their plane because his explosives weren’t detected? How would you feel if part of that same plane crashed into your home also and as a result, you became a quadriplegic? What would you have to say to those whiners who publicly bleat their concerns that body scans invades their privacy? Believe me when I say that terrorists who kill innocent people by blowing themselves up with everyone else around them are invading their privacy also.

The scanners are not really that big of a deal if you've seen any of their featured images posted online or published in newspapers. They are similar to a photo negative of someone with no clothes on, blurred by an unrecognizable face. They're anything but virtual strip searches as some have sensationalized them. We're not talking about nude photos of people here. We're talking about something that looks more like an x-ray shot or an ultrasound image than anything resembling what we would consider to be a picture. Besides, the security personnel viewing the scans will be in a separate room, they won't see the individual being scanned and the image will be automatically deleted after it's viewed. They're already used in international airports around the world.

A body scan is actually far less invasive than pat downs. There's no personal contact such as in body pat downs. I for one would feel less comfortable if a security guard had his hand around my groin while searching for chemical explosives that he thinks may be hidden in my underwear. The body scan is hardly the great invasion of privacy some privacy watchdog groups are weeping about.

There are some concerns by some people that that full-body scanners at airports have the capability to store and send images elsewhere. If that was the case, I could appreciate their concerns. But from what I have learned, the images disappear from the scanning equipment as soon as the person being scanned leaves the scanning area of the equipment. That being as it is, the concerns of these people are moot.

Here is something to consider with respect to full body scans at airports. If someone is carrying explosives on their person, it will be detected because all explosives have material in them that can be detected by such scans. If we don’t use body scans, will pat downs be suffice? I doubt it. If the explosive chemical is evenly distributed in the terrorist’s clothing, it wouldn’t be found. And if a bomb was inserted in the terrorists rectum, it certainly wouldn’t be discovered by a mere pat down. But it would if the terrorist was body scanned. I know what you are thinking. What terrorist would insert a bomb in his rectum? Well, one actually did that. Last year, a 23-year-old terrorist who was on Saudi Arabia’s watch list managed to persuade Saudi officials that he had reformed and wanted to speak with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef aboard the prince’s private plane. The terrorist got on board with the bomb in his rectum and the bomb was then exploded, killing the terrorist but only wounding the prince.

I recognize the importance of privacy. But it seems to me that nowadays, with terrorists walking amongst us, we must be prepared to make certain sacrifices for the good of not only ourselves and our families, but also for the good of everyone else.

It’s ironic when you think about it. It only takes one terrorist to change the lives of millions of airline passengers. The shoe bomber made millions take off their shoes so that their shoes could be examined for explosives before they boarded a plane. The man who placed explosives in a bottle, brought about a policy that prohibits anyone from bringing a drink on board their plane. And now the 23-year-old man who put his explosives in the lining of his underwear has brought about a policy that we can’t go to the toilet in the plane an hour before the plane lands. If the airports had body scanners when these terrorist tried to board their planes, they would have been detected and none of these restrictions and inconveniences would have been thrust upon the millions of airline passengers.

How easy it is for things to go wrong. A medical student who cheated his way through university can end up bungling your operation, resulting in you dying during a simple procedure. One careless security person can be neglectful and let a terrorist get on board a plane and kill everyone on the plane while it is in the air. We as a society have to be vigilant and keep the cheats out of our institutions of higher learning and the terrorists out of our planes. If doing this, we have to sacrifice a small part of our privacy, then let’s do it.

To those who complain about their privacy being invaded at universities during exam times and those who object to having their bodies scammed at airports, I have this message. The invasions of your privacy are trifling. If you don’t like it, then don’t go to university or college. Travel by train, bus, car, ship or buy your own plane instead of flying on a commercial plane. Stop throwing your verbal diarrhea in our faces. We don’t want your nonsensical intrusions to interfere with the wellbeing of the rest of us.