This is just creepy! – It seems that mall can collect tracking data on shoppers via their cell phones. It is covert surveillance:
“…The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.”
link: Shops secretly track customers via mobile phone
Mall business will try to justify this by saying that it will increase the efficiency of their product placement and so forth. The merchants will frame the rationale in such a manner that it appears ‘customer friendly’. Nevertheless, this has extensive privacy implications. Couple this technology with radio frequency identification (rfid) tags and some data base will know every step you took in the mall and will know every purchase made.
This brings to mind a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis: “the right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone”. For many people, even in this technological age, privacy matters.
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/
[tag]shopping, tracking, surveillance, privacy, cell phones, justice louis brandeis, rfid, data base, mall[/tag]