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Shopping Mall SMS Parking Notifications Could Be Used To Track Any Car (itnews.com.au)
Bismillah writes: Westfield's Scentre Group has removed SMS notifications for its ticketless parking system after it was discovered they could be used to track other people's cars unnoticed. The system allows you to enter any licence plate, which in turn will be scanned upon entry and exit at mall parking facilities — and when the free parking time is up, a notification message is sent to the mobile phone number entered, with the exact location of the car.
For a place where you have to pay for parking, it makes sense to send SMS notifications indicating where you parked (upon request) and when you leave the garage. The part about where you parked could help people find their car if they don't remember where they parked (there's a Seinfeld episode about this). I'd recommend charging a fee for the service and requiring people to use their phone at a terminal (NFC or something similar) to discourage abuse while making a bit of money in the process. Another option and layer of security is to require them to take a ticket upon entering the garage, at which point the license plate is scanned. The ticket contains a unique ID that must be entered to activate the service, and can only be associated with that license plate.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense to send SMS notifications upon entering or leaving the garage for a mall, nor does it make sense to have non-free parking. If I have to pay to park at a mall, I'm likely to spend less time inside browsing items I might by and therefore spend less money. It's a bad business move and really doesn't make sense. The model could work where paid parking makes more sense, as long as a credit card and a unique ID given on entry that is only valid for that license plate number is used.
By the way, can we please ban the "how very Republican" spam going on above by the same AC who's been doing this same shit just about every night? At least please mod him into oblivion.
" If I have to pay to park at a mall, I'm likely to spend less time inside browsing items I might by and therefore spend less money. It's a bad business move and really doesn't make sense."
Malls grew in the US precisely so that shoppers could avoid the paid-parking trap in the old downtowns. But the whole situation in Europe is different: compact, high-density cities that have lush public transit systems, making cars an option, not a necessity. If you can take a subway to the basement of the mall, why drive in the city? And for those times when you buy something big or exceptionally valuable, there are delivery services. Meanwhile the mall is built in much more expensive land than in an American suburb, meaning no vast surrounding acreage of parking lots. Parking is typically in a garage under the mall itself.