Ever wondered what it would feel like to be watched by the advertising agencies and have them cater their ads to your hobbies and interests? To stand in line, or wait for your gas to fill up and look at advertisements that are specifically shown to you? Well, now you can.

Tesco PLC, a british grocery superstore and the second largest retailer in the world, is currently in the midst of introducing in-store facial recognition machines at their gas stations and convenient stores. Amscreen, the company that is working together with Tesco to create these digital screens with built in cameras that will detect and study  customers’ facial features to determine one’s approximate age and gender, allowing advertisers to then customize the ads presented to them. According to the company, these new innovations will not store or record any data, as it purely uses characteristics of the individual’s face.

However, the idea as a whole sits slightly uneasily with me. Although the new technology allows for more specific and efficient advertisements, and will allow marketers to cater to a more specific target market, as this innovation begins to mature, companies might begin to evolve the original idea and manipulate its usage to detect personal data, and store  personal information. Similar to the ability for the government to toggle with our phones and electronic devices, this new innovative concept, if pursued, might end up giving the government and other technologically inclined individuals to penetrate our world a little more than it already has via our electronic devices. Ultimately, as our generations’ technology advances, our own privacy begins to depreciate.

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