Slashdot Mirror
British Airways Plans To Google Passengers
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."
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.).
"But the more privacy minded among us know that the airline could end up seeing a lot more than your face."
Well, if you actually WAS privacy minded, not even your face would turn up in a google search.
Of course we all have unique names and faces and Google images contains only correctly tagged photos so this won't cause any confusion at all.
If I'm recognised in a favourite restaurant it's because we know each other well enough for that. If a stewardess I've never met before "recognises" me I know it's fake. The feeling I will probably get is of someone playing manipulative games with me.
I want British Airways to fly me from LHR to wherever in the shortest time at the lowest cost. I don't want them to LIKE me on Facebook as part of the process of doing that.
If they need a nice little pocket sized document with my photo, my date of birth and a unique reference number they can use the nice booklet that cost me £90 from HM Passport Agency.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
From the article, it says at the bottom: ""The Google Images search app helps our customer service team to recognise high profile travellers such as captains of industry who would be using our First class facilities enabling us to give a more personalised service."
I think this is almost certainly something they're aiming at first class passengers only (probably as they approach the lounges at airports). I doubt they care that much about everyone in cattle class...
to recreate the 'feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant'
So, now the airline is going to spit in my food too?
Where everybody knows your name, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Hussein..
If I google myself, I find either a very large black NFL player, or an Airforce general. YAY, instant upgrade.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
the airline could end up seeing a lot more than your face
Sounds like they also want to integrate the results from full body scanners.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It kinda creeps me out when clerks act all "chummy".
they'll be able to recreate the 'feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant,'
I think they're a little more likely to create the feeling of recognition that you get when the creepy, slightly desperate receptionist asks about your dog by name, despite the fact that you haven't told anyone at the office that you have a dog.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
There are several ways to do this that don't involve invading your privacy any more than they already have by making you present papers to fly. They already have all the information you could want in their database about your trips with them. Attaching a photo to it does nothing more than give someone a feeling of unease the moment you've pulled off this sham.
I dislike it when the coffee shop employees use my name without having been introduced because it's unexpected. The first thing that goes through your head is how did this person know my name, then you work backwards and figure it out. "Oh, they read it off my credit card." The uneasiness goes away but the feeling that something wasn't quite right with your experience is still there. Now try it in a situation where you can't figure it out because there’s a third party involved?
Situation: Man you've never seen before approaches you in an airport and says "Mr. Smith?" What is your immediate reaction?
First you're trying to figure out where you've met the person before, then you're trying to figure out if something is wrong or if they're a thief or confidence man playing you because obviously they've overheard your name from somewhere? You're never able to make the connection that they've "recognized" you because they haven't. They weren't even introduced by a mutual acquaintance like the front desk clerk because in a giant airport it would be impossible to believe that the front desk clerk described you well enough to be tracked down.
You will always be left with a feeling that shenanigans have happened and it won't make you happy. Unless you're an extremely trusting grandmotherly type person who finds the novelty to be so interesting you forget your suspicions; If you are in that particular demographic then the novelty of hearing your name called over the intercom so you can come to the desk and be updated would be just as effective as the above.
Finally, I'm in a position of choice in what has become an increasingly hostile market due to security theater. Every chance I get I will choose the airline that isn't creepy internet stalking me.
if we wanted to go to Cheers we would have gone to Cheers rather than our local.
Except that there is no Cheers. It's a made up bar, a fictionalized version of the Bull & Finch pub in downtown Boston.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Googling someone does not violate their privacy. Publishing unauthorized information about someone does.
The whole thing is daft and bound to backfire. For instance; I share my name (which you can easily figure out from my username) with a purveyor of adult photography. I don't want airport staff casually inquiring how the porn business is going.
That's a risk they'll just have to take.
Or what if it's the wrong person with your name?
That's not always a bad thing - may be I'll get some free upgrades out of it! ;-)
It seems my decision to not put my real name online anywhere ever and not join facebook keeps looking smarter and smarter. If I google my name, I get no actually relevant results.
Now if they ask for my online nicknames they'd be like "We see that you don't like microsoft, you're into tech support, and you hate the Phoenix Knights guild in DDO. Welcome aboard!"
I frequent a pawn shop because they have decent laptop, PC, and tech stuff prices and they work on commission so it's like Cheers when I walk in and the sales staff basically see who can get to me first cuz there's a likely $300-1000 purchase in their near future. Plus some of the reps there are sincerely pretty cool.
And then there's the fake ass waitress and hotel and other staff that are trained to be friendly but it's blatently obvious that it's a very thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that they don't give a crap.
All this will actually result in is people asking "oh, did we to school together?" and them having to explain they merely digitally stalked you.
"OK, Mr Goatse, if you could just step over here".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hey Stewardess, another vodka-tonic to send up to the captain!
This sounds like something from the onion
While it's not a terrible idea and I don't particularly mind it, considering how I share a lot of personal information on those same networks... If they are clever they might even find a common topic of interest and skip the whole bit about the weather at 20,000 feet. Why even ask me when all you really want to know is how I feel about Dostoyevsky's narrative style, or about whitespace while coding? That's all I really care about when I talk to people.
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.
--
Do not fucking do this. Thanks.
It was probably made in response to the TV series but there is (or was) such a bar - I've been there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This has nothing to do with knowing that Mrs. Edith Hedgehog in 36J is from Bristol and likes knitting and everything about knowing that Sir Roger Carr in 2A is the chairman of Centrica. It's all about knowing the first class passengers, not the riff-raff in steerage.
I thought Startup Weekend was an interesting exercise in pitching and ad-hoc collaboration, but I agree, anyone who takes a serious project to it is just in for a world of hurt.
That said, none of the ideas at the SW I attended had any hope of becoming the 'next big thing', so I don't think anyone had their ideas stolen.
As for what happened to you, the people who run these things are 'entrepreneurs' not 'coders' and as such, I'm not sure you can really be surprised by their reaction. These folks are outgoing, pleasant people who see everything in very simple terms -- IE not slashdotters. ;)
A TSA chick stood to block my way and told me, "Sir, there was something suspicious on the scan, we are going to have to pat you down."
You have to know, ahem, that in middle age, a lot of us havet the Frank Costanza physique from that Seinfeld "bro" episode. A TSA dude with blue gloves felt my left moob through my clothes and then touched up the middle of my left thigh.
I was going to ask, "Did you find a lump, officer, something where I need to go to the doctor?" I mean if they are doing radiological and physical exams on people, isn't there an ethical responsibility to disclose this? But I just stood there like I was being inducted into the Army and shut-TF-up because I wanted to get on my flight.
If you're trying to figure out just how far down in search you are, http://digfer.com/ is a good utility to "dig" through all those people that are... well, more important than you.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
If you were privacy minded, you wouldn't stuff on the WWW which could be googled which don't want people to know.
I heard it closed (the real one); anyone know? Neat place, wife & I stopped by on our honeymoon in Boston.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Airlines making sure their flight crews can identify their best passengers. Here in the EU! This is a logical outcome of the drive to take care of their most valuable passenger s- the high profit margin ones. Fly a lot and do it at full freight and / or first and they go out of their way to make flying as pleasant as possible. Coming in from overseas - someone meets you at the plane and whisks you to the front of the immigration line. Need to change a flight? They pull your ticket up and a row of $$$$ show up to alert the agent that this customer is one of their VIPs. they even have *gasp* secret high level frequent flier status whose cards magically appear via overnight delivery.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I really don't like fake familiarity. Doing it for commerce makes it that much worse. I'll not fly British Airways.
Have gnu, will travel.
They are completely leaving out the other half of the equation.
You know -- that bit about you knowing and having a camaraderie with the staff of your favorite restaurant?
I'd be more creeped out than anything by some flight attendants I had never seen before seemed to know stuff about me.
I think I'll just pass on ever taking a flight on British Airways -- which should be easy since I've long since vowed TO NEVER GO TO BRITAIN BECAUSE IT'S A POLICE STATE. Which is a shame, because I carry on quite well with the Brits I come across, but there's just no way I'm going to subject myself to their surveillance society. And Flight Attendants have no business prying into my life.
It's not new, really, just a new implementation. The one that comes to mind is cashiers at grocery stores thanking my by name. No, it doesn't make me feel like a regular or like you "know" me, it makes me feel like you can read the name on my loyalty card, credit card, or something else. Worse, it feels like false intimacy because your company told you to act like you know me based on nothing more than being able to read my name off something. If you've ever been a regular somewhere, or had really great service where they DO remember you every time, you know some random airline employee reading your name off a screen because BA googled your picture is nothing anywhere close.
BA, this is a really stupid idea. Don't do it. You will impress no one, and annoy or disturb others.
Okay, it's official. Customer relations people are not human. They can't be, nobody with human emotions or personality could possibly think this was a good idea.
Read Scroogled by Cory Doctorow for a treatment of how this might go...
And I just stopped flying British Airways, added in the scrap heap with US Air, and American Air.
Who is now planning to post pictures of their junk online before making reservations on British Airways?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I am sorry, but any information which shows up in a Google search is not private. Any argument to the contrary is insane.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
What they would learn about me from the first page of a Google search on my name:
I'm a Adobe Worldwide Video Evangelist.
I live in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
I used to work for Boodah Joo Music, Ltd. of San Francisco.
I'm @Beatlejase on Twitter.
I've been running the site Queso.com since 1999 and am a physician.
I'm the producer of "Kid in a Candy Store" and the son of television director/producer Michael Levine.
I'm jaselevine on Facebook.
I'm an associate in the Boston office of Summit Partners, a growth equity firm for exceptional companies.
What they would actually learn about me:
Nothing, because none of those links were about me and all of that information was about other "Jason Levine"s.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.