Buyers Beware: Big Algorithm May Be Watching

Hmmm, are retail stores becoming WiFi enabled privacy-free zones?

I’m starting to think that I should create a new blog category called “Here We Go Again” for the posts I write about technology advancements that push the boundaries of ethical practice.

The latest in the ongoing saga is called “mobile analytics” which involves surveillance video cameras and smartphone trackers installed inside retail stores. A Silicon Valley company has developed software that uses algorithms to interpret data taken from these snooping devices.

Consider this scenario: You spend a few minutes going through a stack of jeans to find the right size, take a pair to the dressing room to try them on and then buy them. The whole time your behaviours are being recorded and stored in the retailer’s database.

It’s all thanks to WiFi technology. WiFi trackers on store shelves can apparently activate and read anonymous identifiers in a smartphone.

Once again it is marketing nirvana for the retailer. It is entirely feasible for this software to automatically generate a marketing pitch, based on your last ten minutes behaviour, and send it to your iPhone before you leave the store.

Big Brother is not just watching and listening. He is inside your head anticipating your whim of the moment and capitalizing on it to sell you something.

A week ago I stepped out of the cell phone dark ages and bought an iPhone. I haven’t yet figured out how to activate anything other than simply making calls, receiving calls and retrieving voice mail messages. Now I’m wondering if I should smash the annoying thing with a hammer and go back to my old dumb phone.

At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist, I can’t help but wonder if the GPS device in my car is already in on the act. It could be recording the days of the week and the time of the day I go the mall and funneling that information to the mall retailers.

Years ago, when police starting using radar to catch speeding drivers, enterprising tech wizards of that era developed fuzzbusters to tip you off that radar devices where nearby. I’m hoping that the kids of those techies are developing algorithm busters to alert us that our smartphones are being hijacked for commercial purposes.

Legislators are doing their best to protect consumer privacy. But there is simply no way they can keep up with the pace or sophistication of technology. By the time they catch up with this latest bit of WiFi wizardy, the next generation of techno snooping will already be locked and loaded.

Orwell coined Big Brother in 1949 as the metaphor for omnipresent government surveillance. I’m declaring Big Algorithm to be the modern metaphor for omnipresent retail surveillance. Buyers beware: Big Algorithm may be watching.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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