The police were summoned. The customer told the investigating officer that the ID was hers, but the credit card was her mother’s, which she had permission to use. The photo ID looked like her, but the officer wasn’t completely certain. Lacking any evidence to the contrary, however, no further action was taken….until the officer got back to a computer. There, the officer was able to do a bit of ad hoc research. She found the social media profile of the name on the credit card. Sure enough, it was unmistakably the customer, who had apparently “borrowed” an ID from someone that looked similar enough to her that it wasn’t obvious at the scene.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
The police were summoned. The customer told the investigating officer that the ID was hers, but the credit card was her mother’s, which she had permission to use. The photo ID looked like her, but the officer wasn’t completely certain. Lacking any evidence to the contrary, however, no further action was taken….until the officer got back to a computer. There, the officer was able to do a bit of ad hoc research. She found the social media profile of the name on the credit card. Sure enough, it was unmistakably the customer, who had apparently “borrowed” an ID from someone that looked similar enough to her that it wasn’t obvious at the scene.
