Surveillance: Tracking You at the Mall
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This is just creepy! - It seems that mall can collect tracking data on shoppers via their cell phones. It is covert surveillance:
“…The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.”
link: Shops secretly track customers via mobile phone
Mall business will try to justify this by saying that it will increase the efficiency of their product placement and so forth. The merchants will frame the rationale in such a manner that it appears ‘customer friendly’. Nevertheless, this has extensive privacy implications. Couple this technology with radio frequency identification (rfid) tags and some data base will know every step you took in the mall and will know every purchase made.
This brings to mind a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis: “the right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone”. For many people, even in this technological age, privacy matters.
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/
Tags: shopping, tracking, surveillance, privacy, cell phones, justice louis brandeis, rfid, data base, mall
2 Comments
Chris
May 16th, 2008
at 4:21pm
This kit costs �20,000 per month to rent and all for market research to see which way you walk around a store. Pull the other one it has bells on.
I’m sure these stores can find better ways to do the same thing, what are they called, oh yeah CCTV and loyality cards.
There is something sinister about spending so much money for very little initial gain. Is this the start of something bigger. Time will sadly tell
hacked360
May 17th, 2008
at 5:49pm
I agree on the whole privacy thing, but you have to agree that its all about good business and safety. I also heard that in the way future cameras will be able to read your thoughts. But if that were to happen how would they be able tell the difference between imagination and reality. As technology advances a non private world seems to be more and more prominent.