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British Airways Plans To Google Passengers

Posted by timothy on from the only-miscreants-and-terrorists-would-object dept.

itwbennett writes "British Airways wants to be the airline where everybody knows your name. The idea behind the 'Know Me' program is that by using Google Images to ID passengers, they'll be able to recreate the 'feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant,' Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at BA told the London Evening Standard. But the more privacy minded among us know that the airline could end up seeing a lot more than your face."

4 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. What if your name doesn't come up? by Kagetsuki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Or what if it's the wrong person with your name? I know my name doesn't show up for me at all (I'm not registered by my real name on social networks etc.).

    1. Re:What if your name doesn't come up? by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ditto. I do sometimes worry whether this will be an issue one day. At some point, will being unable to datamine you, be like not having a credit record; where, even though you're not a bad risk, they still won't/can't deal with you.

      Having a company (an airline, hotel, etc) refuse you a booking, being denied a job, or even having legal problems [**], not because you've done anything wrong, but just because their screening procedures are so tied up with datamining social networking, that they literally can't process anyone who maintains separate online/offline identities. (And as there's fewer and fewer people who will fall into this category, they have no motivation to fix it, and frankly find "people like you" suspicious anyway.)

      [** Not only are police using social networking sites to research suspects; but I wonder if separate online/offline identies are already considered "aliases"?]

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  2. Re:Fake personal touch != personal touch by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I agree for "regular" people, but it sounds like they're targeting this at first-class passengers who might expect to be recognized, and may even have their egos bruised if they aren't. So BA is going to pull up a bunch of photos for the flight attendants peruse, in order to ensure that they don't accidentally fail to recognize a CEO or pop star or whoever.

    It's still fake, but seems like a kind of faking that might work. Especially with people who want to believe it's real, that they're so famous that of course the flight attendants recognized them.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  3. Wyndham did this to me to sell a timeshare by garcia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A buddy of mine invited me and another friend to come stay at a Wyndham resort in WI for a ski weekend a few years ago. We stayed at a resort with multiple restaurants and shops on site.

    Very long and creepy story short, in an attempt to sell more points to my friend (who was on his parent's million+ account) they Googled for us and knew everything about me including my preferences for music, good food, etc and tried to use that as leverage.

    Outcomes:

    1. It was uncomfortable because they only had a cursory knowledge of what I liked and they weren't really applying it well enough.

    2. It was fucking SUPER creepy that they knew anything at all about me. Honestly, it was unnerving.

    3. I don't want strangers treating me like I am eating at my favorite restaurant where I know the owner. You know why? Because they forgot the steps involved to get to that point--the one where you get to know someone from more than a cursory glance at Google.

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    Do not fucking do this. Thanks.