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Shopping Center Tracking System Condemned by Civil Rights Campaigners
hypnosec writes "Civil rights campaigners have spoken out against a technology used by several shopping centers in the UK to track consumers using their mobile signals. The shopping centers claim that the technology helps them provide better services to consumers and retailers without compromising privacy. The system, called the Footpath, allows them to know how people are spending time in a shopping center, which spots they visit the most and even the route they take while walking around. Several consumer and civil rights groups, including Big Brother Watch, say consumers must be given a choice on whether they want their movement tracked or not." We covered a similar tracking system here in the U.S. last month.
There's obvious privacy concerns around this software but if there's no identifying information stored then surely that would eliminate the concerns?
There's an easy way that they could cajole most people into being tracked, and that's to give them "points" which they can spend on good & services depending on the time spent in the shopping centre, etc. That way, both parties get what they want and Big Brother is happy again as Joe Consumer continues on in blissful ignorance.
Shit happens and it's usually caused by assholes
turn your phone off
I think this will be in violation of
Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data
especially Article 7
but apparently nobody cares about what is legal anyway
further reading to be found here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31995L0046
It is not possible to use technology to solve social problems
When you enter any private establishment, you forfeit any right to having your location at any time unknown or unrecorded. It becomes the individuals responsibility to inquire what information about them is being recorded and to chose to continue staying wherever they are or to leave, but when you enter you enter a contract with the owner of the establishment about your presence there.
In store cameras have never been complained about. It might be a breach of privacy to take advantage of radio signals from cell phones, since you never gave the store permission to use the signals your own device generates, but that is a matter of popular opinion - does the store have a right to record or use signals produced by their customers for their own purposes?
In general that is a no, so in that regard I side with the consumer. In the end, it is an argument of privacy in private - inside stores and other establishments you are not in public, so public law need not apply to you. The question is what can the owner of a private place you inhabit at any time do to you or involving you. I say monitoring location is not a problem - recording the radio waves generated by cell phones is kind of a problem.
You can 'opt out' of this tracking service by turning off your mobile phone. But in this time and day, this solution seems akin to telling people to stop using email to 'opt out' from spam or to stop eating foods to 'opt out' of food poisoning. But even if the management wanted the costumers to be able to opt out, how would they do it? The only way is to tell the system to stop tracking the phones opted out, which means the system will need to start tracking the phones individually (to identify which phones are to be tracked and which are opted out), and by doing that, they enable the system to track *individual* users who have not opted out, making the issue worse for the average consumer who has no idea that these systems exist/how they work.
In Holland at least every single citizen is free tor receive any radio signal. If you transmit a signal, I am free to pick it up. There are no limits to this, it is perfectly legal for a citizen to pick up military or police traffic if they want. Decrypting it is another matter of course.
So, since these shoppers are transmitting radio signals they have given explicit permission for anyone else to receive those signals and do whatever they want with it. There is no privacy because the moment you started broadcasting you gave everyone permission to use that signal. Not my fault that signal is coming out of your pants.
To suddenly make it illegal to track a radio signal just because it is a phone and not a "proper" radio signal would require massive changes in the law. What next, I can't aim my attena at the TV broadcasting tower because that is invading its privacy?
So your claim that recording the radio signals is wrong is absolute and totally falls. This should be obvious to anybody with a brain, how can it possible be illegal to capture something passing through my person and property? By my very existence I am capturing radio waves all the time with my body and all my property. What next? You want to ban ordinary radio's from receiving certain bands on the FM spectrum? Make it illegal for my garage opener to respond to your clicker? How about the light from your car charging the solar cells in my garden?
If you don't want other people receiving and processing your radio signals, then you shouldn't be broadcasting them.
Want privacy? Turn your personal tracker off. There is an app for that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Going to the mall is so 1980's. This technology is not only irrelevant, it's out of style.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Why do they track those poor shopping centers anyway.
It's not like they move a lot, is it?
Or did the headline mean that the campaigners condemn a shopping center for tracking a system?
Damn, English, clear out your ambiguities!
Why not just label the people that care about privacy as terrorists... then the people that care about terrorists can be killed quickly and quietly, leaving the other people that are happy, loving the safety and security of their governing body. Isn't that the new form of freedom?
If memory serves the whole argument comes down to whether the IMSI or any unique number to that phone is an interception of cellphone traffic. Currently only law enforcement can get at these and hackers/mobile providers obviously. Lets all just get these with cameras,car number plate+facial recognition and publish the combined results. Or we could record all FLO (forces of law and order) or owners of shops movements to get our own back.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
If this tracking system stores no user information whatsoever, that would be one thing. But if it tracks phones by following MAC addresses or other information, and if there is CCTV, it can easily be argued that this could be used to store personal data by the simple route phone tracking -> cctv records -> facebook recognition (for instance). As the user does not know that s/he is being tracked, or even that this is possible, has not agreed to it, and does not know where to go to find the information, this appears to be in breach of Europen data protection legislation.
I note that you suddenly switch from intercepting signals to recording signals and then say "is wrong is absolute and totally fails". This is some Netherlands legal formulation with which I am not familiar. You also write "This should be obvious to anybody with a brain". I am afraid that these are not legal arguments; they are content free attempted sledgehammers to close down discussion. The fact that you feel the need to do this shows, frankly, that you know you are writing rubbish. If you believed your own argument, you would not feel the need to justify it by pre-emptively announcing that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid. You must be huge fun at management meetings.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I was about to ask if anyone had a list of places that did this (so I know if I were to go to one whether I needed to turn my phone off or not bring it), but found this in the Guardian article:
However the company refused to say how many shopping centres in the UK used the technology or identify any of those that had installed it. The company only said that it was used in seven countries.
I may see if I can find out about my local one, or just go with a default of not having my phone (either on or with me at all)
That's cute. You think they care about laws. How quaint.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In Soviet Britain, Centres Shop You!
Couldn't resist ;-)
I'm forced to use UK shopping centres, including participants in this system, more often than I would like (which given how often I would like is "never", probably isn't saying much). And you know what...
Track me. Monitor me. Scrutinise me. Spy on me. Do whatever you want. Provided that what you do with the results tells you that what I actually want from the hell-hole you manage requires more than an identikit, crapulent collection of over-priced clothing and jewellery stores and a single branch of Game.
I've noted the number of shops in these places that have closed down over the last two years and I'm not surprised. This isn't really a good time to be trying to sell people a £200 pair of jeans. In fact, I'm not sure there ever is a good time to try to sell people a £200 pair of jeans. And yet that's what every shop in these places seems to be trying to do.
Whew... that turned into more of a rant than I intended.
If this is the same system as I remember reading about before it was setup by a Brit entrepreneur with GNURadio:
http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/153689
It sounds like a very inspiring story for geeks & radio enthusiast entrepreneurs.
His software is of course, closed source so I can't say much more than that.I can't find the website now. I think he focusses on shopping malls but it can work anywhere and if you got the cash he'd probably do that for you.
The bit I don't understand is how he communicates the movement to the customer. In my mind I imagined a full map but it could be more simple; just indicating which shop is closest.
I think the company is called Path Intelligence?
http://groups.google.com/group/london-hack-space/browse_thread/thread/564ac80ec04b8b3f
http://www.pathintelligence.com/en/products/footpath/footpath-technology
The patent:
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=1779133&KC=&FT=E&locale=en_EP
-j
A blog I run for the wealth
Tape 'em to hamsters (be nice and use medical tape), and let the hamsters go.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
if you choose to own and use a cell phone, then the least of your worries is this specific mundane type of mobile surveillance. mobile devices and carriers are capable of and guilty of so much more egregious and sophisticated violations to privacy that should really be in the mainstream focus. insidious things like carrieriq and trueposition not to mention the direct unchallenged interface between carriers and LEOs/government are what truly erodes electronic civil rights. but whatever just as long as i have my spotify and angry birds i guess...
I heard an interesting interview recently with someone involved with this project (or something very similar). He said that the system does not identify individuals, just sees handsets, which are tracked as the owners move around the area under study. The mapping of handset to individual (e.g. phone number) relies on data which they do not have access to, nor do they want. They are more interested in the movement of individual, unidentified people. As a result, the data which they have does not contain any personally-identifiable information, he said, and they are not licensed for the handling of personal data.
He went on to sat that if there were to be a requirement for an opt-out soloution, personally-identifiable information would realistically be required at some point in the process of mapping handset data to opted-out individuals, which would require them to receive and hold personally-identifiable information, which they did not want to do.
Well, nobody except the company in question, which has said it has checked out the legality of what it is doing very thoroughly with the Information Commissioner. Apart from that minor point, you're absolutely spot on.
...to get pointed out that I am a citizen and a human being, not a "consumer" ? I wish NOT to be reduced to what, where and when I buy.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
...which is simply not using a mobile phone to enable "tracking" systems like this, never considered?
There are obvious weaknesses to tracking systems such as this. Yes, the majority of you may be sitting there laughing uncontrollably at the notion of you actually giving up your cell phone, but you're not laughing any harder or louder than the older generation at the notion that no one thinks they can "survive" without one.
Forget the Internet, how the hell we survived prior to the last 20 years without cell phones continues to perplex even the most advanced minds.
TURN OFF YOUR DAMN PHONES! seriously, it wasnt so long ago that people could only answer the phone from within their homes.
frankly, i find it rude when people are chatting in a store or walking blindly into people because they are smsing.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I wonder if this can be prosecuted under the wireless telegraphy act?
In Britain you're not free to receive any radio signals you want, you need authorization to do so. (That's how they get radar detectors - the radar detectors are not illegal, but receiving the radar signal without a license is). Some parts of the WT act are course a stupid and illiberal law, but it could be used for good in this instance.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
"consumers must be given a choice on whether they want their movement tracked or not."
They have a choice: to turn off their phones before entering the mall.
"turning off your mobile phone. But in this time and day, this solution seems akin to telling people to stop using email to 'opt out' from spam or to stop eating foods to 'opt out' of food poisoning."
Is it? I have an old style dumbphone which I hardly ever have switched on. Its mainly just for me to make outgoing calls. If someone needs to contact me they can try my landline at home or work or else send a text or leave a voicemail and I'll pick it up later. I didn't need to be contactable 24/7 20 years ago and I don't need to be now. Only a fool lets technology rule their life rather than just being a tool.
And its no different to mail order which my housebound granny used to use all the time. Some of us LIKE going out and actually buying stuff on the spot, not having to wait 2 days for it to be chucked over the wall by some minimum wage fed-ex grunt.
The store may be private property but essentially you are in a public place. You are easily observable and can be followed by anyone who can obtain the same information. If the supermarket openly stated that they were doing this I don't have a problem with that. Some people may so they should turn the cell phone off. No big deal here. Of course there is a chance that the information is misused but I think we'll have t wait and see what happens.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
If the tracking data does not allow for identification of the individual then it is not personal data and the Directive does not apply.
(a) 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
The UK Information Commissioner provides a step-by-step quick reference [PDF] appears to confirm anonymous phone signals are not "personal data".
Laws, promulgated by lawyers, meant to be broken, challenged, and perpetuate the legal industry through conflict, suit, and hefty legal fees for both sides.
If we're looking for conspiracy theories, let's look at how the laws are crafted to be broken and then arise in a submarine patent fashion to bite both sides of the argument and feed the legal machine.
An inspiring story, that a geek got rich by making the world a worse place for all of us.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
He must be not American
That's cute. You think they care about laws. How quaint.
No he doesn't. You seem to have missed the bit where he said 'but apparently nobody cares about what is legal anyway'.
and don't even carry a "dumb phone" mobile device unless I am meeting someone somewhere.
There's already camera systems in use in retail stores which measure customer flow, calculating dwell time in front of specific products, navigation between isles and so on.
Here's one example which came up in a quick Google search.
This sounds like applying that same principle within a mall to track which store a given person/type of shopper visits on a single trip.
Just like the stores, the malls already have security cameras in place, recording your visit. All they would need to do is analyse it in a different way. No one is going to get very far claiming malls or stores can't have security cameras. Are there existing laws which dictate how that footage is used?
You or I might not feel comfortable with these sorts of tracking systems, but at least with the radio system we can choose to turn off our phones.
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
If the tracking data does not allow for identification of the individual then it is not personal data and the Directive does not apply.
If they track your location, have records of credit/store/bank/loyalty cards used, and video recordings then their system allows identification of most people.
Of course they will lie and say it's impossible to correlate the data.
Why not just turn your phone/mobile device off?
Maybe not 100% of the time forever, but it would make an impressive protest. Have a huge crowd show up at that shopping center, invisible.
Unless you are a doctor with a patient in critical care, a drug dealer or are on duty at your job you probably don't need to have your phone on while in a shopping center. This probably true for 90% of the people out there. Phone calls can wait until they get home.
Another great way to protest this is to have a team putting up warning signs with some cool 1984/orwellian illustrations all around the shopping center.
Is it possible to put something into a phone to detect when the phone is being tracked? How about is a surveillance camera is operating?
If not, it could be a cool thing to develop.
People's phones could beep when it detects they are being spied on. The owners could then walk up to whatever local manager there is and let them know they will not be shopping there.
Better yet, a phone app that will jam such technology without hurting the hardware.
it's their carts, so they can track them.
Oh, this center does not have carts? Baskets?
Or hand out to random people "would you mind being tracked, carry this device until you exit"
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Would hate to have to replace it with one of the new-fangled fondle slabs.
It makes sense to me, after all these people are voluntarily carrying around a tracking device that broadcasts their location with a unique identifier. If they didn't want to be tracked they wouldn't be carrying the damn things around. It seems inconceivable that they would seriously expect no one to track them.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Most cellular phones and other wireless devices contain some equivalent form of a 'hardware ID'. MAC address, ESN, SID or MIN all help identify wireless devices to their respective networks. These numbers don't usually change each time you go into an area, and as such can be used to remember you from a previous encounter. Aside from missing one link (a given owner of a particular 'hardware ID'), I don't see how they're particularly anonymous. Since it's often not necessary to know your name, helpful though it might be, they can always send you targeted information based on past tracking.
January 20, 2017
In a stunning turnaround, Footpath industries today announced it will cease operations. The company known for its outrageous cell-tracking software used in shopping centers around the UK held a press conference at its London headquarters.
"After five years of conducting surveys of shoppers we were amazed at the findings. However it seems there is no market for this information as all of our potential customers claim to already know what we are telling them." said Jeremy Crustfeld of Footpath customer relations.
The report released just last month indicated that women and men had radically differing shopping methods. Whereas men would commonly enter a center, travel in a straight path to their destination, buy one or two items and leave, women would spend hours walking from store to store and ether purchasing nothing or buying items marked down from original prices. When broken down by age it seems younger men followed younger women around centers, middle-aged men with middle-aged women separated from the women and congregated around areas with large-screen televisions broadcasting sports programming, and older couple wandered aimlessly in circles until their buses came to pick them up.
Says one Rodney Kurz from the UK Shopping Center Association "What git doesn't know that?"
The same suggestion I had for mucking up Facebook's data. Create false data. Though this is more difficult but could still easily be done. Just schedule shopping trips to coincide with your friends. Swamp cell phones in the parking lot, do your shopping on separate routes, swap back in the parking lot. Use a variety of friends. Suddenly their data is all fucked up.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I'm only worried about this sort of thing when the day comes that I walk into a store and they say "We don't take cash and why is your cellphone off?" until that day the people complaining about this seem foolish to me, because you have the power currently to thwart this by using cash and turning off your cell or using a shielded sleeve, but you don't, because your "convenience" takes priority over your "outrage".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Don't want to be tracked? Turn off your cellphone when you enter areas using this tracking technology.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Laws, like taxes, are for the little people.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Then, like Airmiles, they will increase the price of products to compensate for this.
Privacy Commissioner in Australia, UK and US have cleared this previously illegal tracking technique due to one reason. It supposedly disregards the information containing your phone number or any other identifiable data. The joke is that it only pretends to.
The information they track (the TSMI, sort of like a dynamic IP address) in fact rarely changes. So unless you leave the country or power your phone off they still know if you come back to one of their shopping centres. They specifically promote return visitation as a product feature.
The second thing to consider is that the Land Securities and Westfields of this world are quite happy to mine and compare databases. So if they have your credit card details, video image, spending profile, loyalty card details, mobile shopping app details and now all your geo-location details then all your bases are belong to them.
This is the thin end of the wedge. Geo-loaction should be something you can easily opt out of.
Please vote this up and spread the word.
Better still send a letter to your local MP/privacy lobby group.
Their property ; their choices ; their rules. You have no expectation of privacy.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"