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Shopping Center Tracking System Condemned by Civil Rights Campaigners

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-the-do-not-track-list dept.

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.

38 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Privacy by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 2

    There's obvious privacy concerns around this software but if there's no identifying information stored then surely that would eliminate the concerns?

    1. Re:Privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There will be identifying information stored. Never believe otherwise.

    2. Re:Privacy by Nibbler(C) · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, some of technologies are based on BlueTooth, which gives the MAC-48 address. It is unique, and with proper datamining could be identified if you visit enough stores and use credit card. I think the granularity for locating is around 15 feet radius.

    3. Re:Privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When the information is so easily datamined and you have no idea who has an IMSI catcher or signal triangulation or whatnot, how can you even have this illusion of privacy? You will be tracked. The shop owners will never tell you.

    4. Re:Privacy by spacefight · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly my words. If they can pinpoint and track you through the stores over their microcells, bluetooth or maybe even WLAN (if available), then they for sure will be able to pinpoint you down once you stop at the cashier at store X and link your anonymous avatar/id to your credit card and bamm, no longer anonymous. Then they'll see what you purchased. Then they sort out what you'll buy next or likely buy next and and and.... There is big money in this. Don't use your credit card and/or switch of the cell phone if you don't wanna be tracked. Better work against it.

    5. Re:Privacy by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      Way ahead of you. I go in and buy doggy treats and condoms. Datamine THIS!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Incentives by BlackusDiamondus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Incentives by game+kid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even simpler, just make them behave like price-reducing, habit-tracking "club cards", except you don't even need to take them out or fill any name-and-address forms to get'em. "1 raisin cereal, $5.00, just $3.99 with your smartphone! No club cards to fumble with--just bring your phone in your pocket and you provide valuable marketing inf^W^W^W^Wsave!"

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    2. Re:Incentives by coolmadsi · · Score: 2

      It'll get sold to an insurance company eventually. They'll check how much junk you eat, then they'll screw you on your health cover.

      Not as much of a problem in the UK, but there are other issues.

    3. Re:Incentives by Threni · · Score: 3

      He asked what was wrong with it, not for an example of a morally neutral use for the information.

    4. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Did you hear the story where people visiting web shops on iPads paid higher prices for the same products? Why would a merchant do that? Because he has segmented the customer base into price-conscious people and people who have iPads.

      The more information a merchant has about you, the closer he can get to the maximum price you're willing to pay. This is the reason why these systems are installed. If you're OK with paying more than you have to, these tracking systems should not worry you. In that case I suggest you never take up playing Poker.

      There are other privacy issues when you can't control who else gets the information, but the intended consequences alone should be enough for customers to shun stores who track them.

    5. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothing at all, if you sign up for the "loyalty" cards and are happy, good luck to you.

      Privacy aside for a second the one thing that always gets me annoyed by all this profiling is that I want some random activity in my life. I discovered I liked carrots by simply buying shredded carrots one day on a whim when I was 19, I hadn't eaten them since I was sick aged 4! I still don't like them that much but I know now that I can eat them when offered without breaking out in a cold sweat. I discovered metal music simply by buying Iron Maiden's Live After Death album for a laugh way back in 1985 after existing on a diet of chart music for 3 years, just like all my friends at the time. I made some silly minor rash actions which lead me onto other things.

      If profiling had been in operation and I had been following trends geared towards my current tastes, as I most likely would have been doing when in my teens, I would most likely have never have been advised to simply try carrots again or pick up a vinyl album that day. I don't want some analytical system advising me on what the developers think I might like and won't like based on what I have done previously. These mega-corps don't want you to think and be rash, they want you where they can see you, doing what they think you should be doing, their way. Don't! Go out and go nuts, throw these stupid profiling systems into chaos and discover that your complex and interesting life cannot be simply modelled by a bit of software.

    6. Re:Incentives by iter8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IDK whats wrong if a database has a track of my monthly grocery purchases

      It's MY information about ME. I don't collect information about how many cans of soup the market sells and I couldn't without the store's permission. Why should I want them to collect information about me to be sold to a 3rd party without asking me and paying me? If that information is valuable to a store, it's valuable to me. I want to know what clear benefit there is to me and I want to decide which transactions I engage in. I realize that is probably a vain hope since we long ago stopped being customers and became products.

    7. Re:Incentives by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Nothing by itself, but the implications are numerous. The worst of which is "profiling". Which has developed into something that's a lot like phrenology. He bought x, y and z, and someone else who did that went bonkers and threw a bomb in the local school, so let's watch that guy.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. this is probably in violation of EU privacy laws by ga53n · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  4. Conflicted Issue by Xanny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Conflicted Issue by DZign · · Score: 2

      Also my opinion.. probably a discussion will end being around technicalities (legal catching radiowaves or not)..

      Marketing/branding research already investigated shop layouts and paths shoppers make since many years. This is nothing new.
      The only difference is that in the past it was small scale. It started somewhere in the 1960ies/70ies, you had actual people in a shop and observing how shoppers walked around (seems most enter a shop, turn to the right and go around in a big circle).
      Later security cameras were used to do this, just record everything and have someone watch the tapes later and draw out the path.
      Probably now some automatic computer tracking is added to it, so you don't need a person watching all the tapes and tracking individual paths..

      Only big difference now with cellphones is that it's done on a much larger scale, they can track everyone around the shopping centre and even know when people come back..

      --
      Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
    2. Re:Conflicted Issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      There is nothing stopping an individual following you around in public taking note of your locations.

      That's not what the judge told me.

    3. Re:Conflicted Issue by symbolset · · Score: 2

      All the more reason to order your shit from Amazon and have it delivered by a guy that's not tracking your phone, nor taking your picture for visual recognition. If they want to play this game, screw 'em.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    4. Re:Conflicted Issue by lucidlyTwisted · · Score: 2

      Yes, because Amazon do not track you. Oh no. They don't have a vast database on what you buy when. No. Not Amazon!
      If one's tin-foil hat is twitching: visit local stores (not national chains), only use cash.

    5. Re:Conflicted Issue by Inda · · Score: 2

      When Shop A swaps its tracking info with Shop B, we have an even bigger problem. Comet, Dixons and PC World are all owned by the same company and I'll guess they all share their data.

      Stalking is illegal in the UK. How is following me around from shop to shop not stalking?

      I couldn't give a shit if they say it's anonymous, as we all know it's not.

      I'm so glad most of my shopping is done online. The only shops I visit are local corner shops, many of which know my real name and where I live... maybe I haven't thought that through properly. Don;t spend money in shops is the only solution.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    6. Re:Conflicted Issue by hughbar · · Score: 2

      Related to this issue, often shopping centres and in London, Canary Wharf are not 'public realm'. So although, in many cases you appear to be in public space, you are not, you are in the jaws of some corporation or other [Westfield, Canary Wharf etc. etc.] Anna Minton's book, Ground Control: http://www.annaminton.com/Ground_Control.htm has a good exposition and explanation of this. Parts of our so-called 'Olympic Village' [which nearly all East Enders didn't want] are apparently private.

      So, surveillance at will, no street musicians and no pesky protests about stuff. Welcome to the new world of the new enclosures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts buy something and be grateful to be tracked 'for your safety and convenience'. Thank you for your cooperation.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
  5. Opt Out by expo53d · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. There is another issue by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:There is another issue by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Capturing and recording radio signals is fine, analysing them and extracting identifying information is another matter ...

      that requires decryption, and could be considered hacking
      and requires personal info to be stored which involves data protection

      If they gain access to any personal information using this then they are almost certainly breaking data protection laws, this is why they keep stressing the "aggregated" but to track you need to identify individuals ....

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    2. Re:There is another issue by blindseer · · Score: 2

      I'll generally agree with this argument. This makes sense to me. If I'm being bombarded with RF then I should have the right to examine what I'm being bombarded with.

      I will suggest that someone could argue that there is a difference in examining the content of the radio signal, as in listening in to the conversation, and in using the radio signal to track the source of that signal. One could argue that there is a difference in listening in on the radio conversations of police cars and using the radios in those cars to track their movements.

      Wasn't there an article on Slashdot before about a technique that used radio emitters like Wi-Fi stations, CFL bulbs, refrigerator motors, and so on to make a passive device that could see through walls? If I am allowed to examine the content of the radio signals to that level then I can watch what my neighbors are doing in considerable detail. I also recall reading somewhere that use of such devices (whether they use IR or RF) by police was prohibited without a warrant. Private parties are not held to the same standards as police so a use like this might be lawful. I'd think that some sort of notification by the observer might be needed to keep this level of observation legal, sort of like the notice that cameras might be used in dressing rooms in clothing stores.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  7. No. by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I suspect you will find that is a "radio broadcast signal". It may be legal to receive signals from the police, but I strongly suspect that if you were found to be recording those signals and then using them to predict police movements, you would be in breach of the law. I think you are deliberately confusing simple reception, which is unavoidable in many cases and therefore cannot be illegal, and the use that is made of intercepts.

    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."
  8. Re:Australia too by symbolset · · Score: 2

    That's not going to do it. Leave your phone home. And wear a mask.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  9. Re:this is probably in violation of EU privacy law by symbolset · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's cute. You think they care about laws. How quaint.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  10. Let me turn this around for a moment... by RogueyWon · · Score: 2

    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.

  11. GNURadio system initially from one man band setup by jago25_98 · · Score: 2

    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
  12. Just take old cell phones to the pet dept... by ibsteve2u · · Score: 3, Funny

    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"
  13. Re:Only dinosaurs go to the mall by chiark · · Score: 2
    >Anyway, what do you guys have in those old city centers?

    In the US, the concept of a city centre as known in the UK, Germany, etc, is utterly alien in the majority of cities. If you want to buy something, you go to a mall... I guess Boston is a bit of an exception, and there will be others too, but shopping = mall.

    In the UK, city centres are still surviving - just - but there has been quite a change that I've observed: smaller stores are popping up, which is a Good Thing, and occasionally larger empty stores are being taken on by a load of small, independent traders acting as a co-operative.

    It used to be every other shop was a shoe shop (see Douglas Adams!), and more recently a phone shop. Thankfully, that trend is reversing and there's more diversification.

    Councils are realising that they must be careful not to kill the centre complete, so are slowly reacting to adjust business rates to be affordable for smaller businesses, and are also realising that city centre parking is an important part of the equation: as an example, Leeds has reduced its parking rates from £2-3/h during the week to £1/h at weekends.

    City centres are competing with bright, well lit, under cover spaces that provide free parking but are merely carbon copies of any mall you could find anywhere in the UK, or even in Europe... The city centres are becoming more about independent retailers, and less of an indentikit city: we're not there yet, but my observations are that things are moving slowly that way. And more power to them!

  14. Why is the most obvious fix... by geekmux · · Score: 2

    ...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.

  15. Speak for yourself by Viol8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.

  16. Re:No list by andy.ruddock · · Score: 2

    From the Guardian article there's a link to the Princesshay shopping centre which does use this system. Their website has a link to LandSecurities which is apparently the largest commercial property company in the uk. They have a link to a map which shows their retail property locations (http://www.landsecurities.com/retail-portfolio/our-retail-properties-by-location). This is probably a good starting point to determine the shopping centres using this system in the UK.

    --
    God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
  17. Re:this is probably in violation of EU privacy law by whargoul · · Score: 2

    He must be not American

  18. Re:this is probably in violation of EU privacy law by 1s44c · · Score: 2

    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'.