CHAPTER 8: COMPARISONS – PRIVATE SECTOR ACTIVITY
The impact and extent of commercial use of consumer data
8.73.
8.74.
8.75.
Commercial use of consumer data can have serious impacts on the personal lives of
individuals:14
(a)
A woman’s sexuality was exposed to her colleagues, against her wishes,
because of the advertisements that popped up on her screen.15
(b)
A department store sent coupons for baby items to customers whose
purchasing history gave them a high “pregnancy prediction score”. The father
of one teenage recipient made a complaint to the department store before
discovering the accuracy of the prediction.16
(c)
A credit card company lowered a customer’s credit rating because he shopped
at places where other customers had a poor repayment history.17
Moreover, such use of data is increasingly complex:
(a)
A Canadian firm tracks up to 10 million mobile devices every day in Toronto
and builds lifestyle categories based on people’s movements.
(b)
Shoppertrak uses in-store WiFi sensors to track customers’ phones so it knows
if they return to the store.
(c)
At least 160 third party websites watch the users of OKCupid, a dating site,
noting the websites they visit later.
(d)
Various identification technologies are in development. As well as the familiar
(and fast improving) facial recognition systems, these include voiceprint
recognition systems, iris scanners that work at distance, gait recognition
systems and systems for identifying people by typing style, writing style and
even – apparently – body odour.18
The significance of such developments is expressed in the following prediction:
“Store clerks will know your name, address, and income level as soon as you
walk through the door. Billboards will know who you are, and record how you
respond to them. Grocery store shelves will know what you usually buy, and
exactly how to entice you to buy more of it. Your car will know who is in it, who
is driving, and what traffic laws that driver is following or ignoring.”19
14
15
16
17
18
19
The examples in this section are taken from M. Venkataramanan, My Identity for Sale, unless
otherwise stated.
J. Angwin, Dragnet Nation: A quest for privacy, security and freedom in a world of relentless
surveillance, 2014, p. 167.
“How Companies learn your secrets”, The New York Times Magazine, 16 February 2012.
A. Croll,”Big Data is our Generation’s civil rights issue, and we don’t know it”, Solve for Interesting
website, 31 July 2012.
B. Schneier, Data and Goliath, 2015, chapter 2.
Ibid.
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