alt Hacker News>[...] but the law requires you to show ID to the pharmacist who then logs your name and address. There is absolutely nothing in the law that requires scanning or storing the customer's ID, and I don't know why anyone would agree to let them do it.
there is very little difference except one is manual input and one is automated input. so, i am not quite sure i am understanding your objection to one and not the other. either your are ok with your information being recorded, or you arent -- the "how it is entered into the recording system" part seems immaterial to me.
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There's a major difference -- one involved providing a copy of your ID to a 3rd party and the other does not.
I don't want my identity stolen after I bought some cough syrupe because some dirt-bag third party ID management company that was contracted by a pharmacy didn't do their job.
At least where I live, the only information they log when looking at my ID is my name and address. Scanning my ID gives them additional information, which increases the vulnerability.
I don't trust them to store it securely nor to avoid the temptation to use that information for other purposes. The only countermeasure is to prevent them from having that information in the first place.