"One method of overcoming the difficult informational requirements of
the allocation models described above is by enacting a requirement that
anyone wanting to purchase cigarettes must first purchase a 'cigarette
card'. The card, which could be based on the same magnetic strip (or
computer chip) technology used for credit cards and ATM cards, would be
issued to any legal-aged smoker who wanted to buy cigarettes and would
have to be presented by the smoker each time she purchased cigarettes.
[É] A reaction of many readers may well be that our proposal gives too
much information to government agencies, therefore creating a 'Big
Brother' problem. We sympathize with that concern, but we believe the
problem is not as significant as it may appear initially. First, it is
not clear that the sort of information that the cigarette card system
would generate is any different from the sort of information that the
American public routinely provides to government and private agencies.
In other words, it may be too late to worry about the sort of privacy
concern that this proposal raises."
-- Jon D. Hanson and Kyle D. Logue, "The Costs of Cigarettes: The
Economic Case for Ex Post Incentive-Based Regulation", Yale Law Journal,
Vol. 107, No. 8 (March 1998), pp. 1292 and 1294.