Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Fingerprints and Infectious Diseases (e.g. Swine flu)

After I discussed the issue of fingerprints and 'flu virus transfer with a few people in London, I was told this story about the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
Apparently, they were planning to use fingerprint readers for I.D. at the athletes' access gates but the French medical team objected because the print readers might transfer some diseases and infect their healthy team (which presumably had been quarantined before the events). So lanyards and bar-coded I.D. cards were used.
So in 2000, it was already known that fingerprinting devices were a health hazard!
Well, too late now. The horse has bolted.