Slashdot Mirror
Supermarket Loyalty Cards Vs National ID Cards
john.wingfield writes "The BBC is running a story on a speech David Blunkett, the British Home Secretary, has given on ID cards and supermarket loyalty cards. He criticises the data protection arrangements for the loyalty cards whilst simultaneously (hypocritically?) promoting his own national ID card scheme, which is exempt from the Data Protection Act 1998. See also the UK Information Commissioner's (data protection and freedom of information watchdog) concerns about the ID card scheme."
The cards were not a panacea for everything but could help stop terrorists using multiple identities Because everyone KNOWS that terrorists can't fake ID cards! Hell, that's probably why GB is the terrorist haven that it is now, because they don't have a national ID card!
Geez, I thought that only America had to deal with this kind of insane rationalization. And no, I don't have and never will have a "loyalty" (i.e. "We want to track you") card.
as for the supermarket loyalty cards, they give the card, no one says you have to give them your address, they call me Mr Goatse at one store, one clerk figured it out and started laughing at my name. You can easily grab a handful of them, use one for every day of the week.
I reluctantly applied for one a few years ago, since the discounts meant I'd save over $100/year. In reality, I was off by a factor of two, saving close to $200/yr. off of the store's artificially inflated prices.
There are actually two types of discount cards: the first requires a real name and address and proof of identity. This one affords the user check cashing privileges. Since I do my banking business at an actual bank, I opted for the second, which doesn't require a real identity. Being a properly paranoid Slashbot who doesn't want The Powers That Be to track my aluminum foil purchasing habits (for the hats, you see), I gave my name as John Doe, 1234 Main St., Anytown, USA.
I'd been using the card for over five years before I realized that the cashier sees your name come up on her terminal when you use the card. About a month ago, the cashier asked me if my name was really "John Doe".
"Yeah, and it's a real bitch when I check into a hotel," I replied.
About a year after I got the card, the supermarket (Stop and Shop in Massachusetts) launched a web site that integrated your purchasing data. You'd log in by entering the serial number on the card and get a history of your purchases and discounts, along with "healthy" alternatives (which was pretty brain dead, offering mayonnaise as a "healthy" alternative to mustard).
The beauty part was that after you logged in you were presented with the option of password protecting your data. However, that meant that anyone who hadn't logged in had their purchase data unprotected (albeit with no identity attached). I tested this by entering numbers at random and viewing the purchase histories of random strangers ("Grape soda and rice cakes? What were you thinking?" "Oooh! KY Warming Jelly! Party on, dude!"). I was tempted to enter passwords for some of these but I didn't.
The store pulled the web site after a couple of weeks, citing "security concerns".
Gotta go. I have a craving for grape soda and rice cakes.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank