Plans to introduce biometrics screening for cannabis users in the Dutch town of Maastricht have been dropped. Buying cannabis in the Dutch city of Maastricht was to have meant having your fingerprints taken, your face scanned and your biometric data recorded. Cannabis is theoretically illegal in the Netherlands but has been tolerated in small amounts since the 1970s.All 15 coffee shops in the southern city planned to spend about 100,000 euros ($134,000) installing a security system that would have made it harder for an under-age cannabis smoker to enter than a terrorist to set foot in Europe, according to Marc Josemans, head of the local coffee shop union.
Customers in Maastricht were to have their fingers and face scanned. The scans would have been compared with stored data and, if everything matched, they would be able to enter the coffee shop. No names and addresses were to be stored and details on the amount of cannabis bought every day were to have been saved only until midnight.
A less expensive form of fingerprint taking will now be used instead.
