This was printed on the e-mailed invitition for the Master Fair (Masterbeurs), after providing my full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, current study, probable date of graduation, etcetera:

On entering the Master Fair you’ll get a badge with your name and a barcode. Wear this badge around your neck and if you visit a stand the people there just scan your barcode to obtain your personal information. This saves you time filling out the forms, and leaves time for your conversation.

Sneaky bastards! Filthy information fetishists! I, being a multimedia design student, was quite disturbed by the way The Organisation of the SP!TS Masterbeurs tried to obtain personal information through something trivial as the entrance ticket to a fair where one can choose from a handful of (inter)national post-graduate studies.

Now, aware of this personal-detail-horny organisation, I convinced my parents and cousin, who joined me on my Quest for the Holy Master, to keep their badges not around their necks–the Masters of Spam suggested this with a free key-cord –but in their pockets. They wisely agreed.

But when we entered the hall of wisdom, overwhelmed by so much knowledge and academic arrogance, I made the classic mistake to show my badge to a girl standing in the doorway. I thought she had to scan everybody for statistics-sake. I couldn’t be more wrong. She was a siren, sent by the Faculty of Mathmetics. A terrible thought hunts me now: me being unable to open my frontdoor, because of all the Math Mail waiting there to convince me to go study long divisions or impossible chess problems. On a blackboard.

A good start. It turned out this was only the warming-up; now all the people working their stands were looking for that one unattended badge to zap with their IR-scanner. Mine however, was locked up safely in my inside pocket. From now on, after that maths-incident, I would guard that badge with my life.

Some information gatherers had some cunning ways to reach their goals: they try to lure you with free books, suitcases, free golf clinics even, in trade for your precious personal details. Oh, the temptation.

After the little chats I had with study coaches and students and being handed the mandatory folders and ballpoints, all of them asked me if they could scan my badges. I politely, yet assured refused, of course. Some just shrugged their shoulders, and let me go. Others like one woman from the London Metropolitan University, were not amused and decided to not be so nice anymore. I tried to say explain, but she interrupted me to say that she wouldn’t send me junk mail anyway and that this of course was my own choice. I agreed and waved her and her scanner goodbye.

On our way back to the car we payed the toilet a visit, so we avoided the official exit somehow, without even noticing. When we found out, we saw that people using the regular exit were having their badges scanned. Pour souls.

Of course this is just an example of how the Dutch people are on a constant high of their own technological supply. From this place I’d like to cheer for other great initiatives in the country where privacy ignorance is on one of the highest levels in the world. Here goes. Hurray for the public transport chip-card. Hurray for ‘bill driving’ (rekeningrijden). Hurray for the mobile phone operators. Hurray for the Internet providers. Hurray for the DigiD. Hurray for AH’s Bonus Card. All data about our movements, phone calls, Internet visits, are monitored and stored for years. And last but not least, the one factor that binds all these information factors together: hurray for the heavily discussed fingerprint of every single Dutch citizen the parliament wants so badly. When this magical missing is cracked, the designated hacker has access to all personal information. Dark times lie ahead, my friends!

Maybe the math junk isn’t so bad after all.