I watched a news clip (link is at the bottom) from ABC about a retail store in San Francisco that was using camera’s in its stores to gather information on its customers. The camera would be placed strategically in mannequins to gauge the facial expression from the customer, if they liked the clothing and anything else that could be read from that. It goes even further than that, the cameras also record the age of the customers that entered the store, what they bought, etc. Sounding a little intrusive? It gets a little more invasive, in my opinion. At the cash register the store records a photo of the consumer with a little bio of their customer including: age group, what they bought, how long they were in store and any other information that was gathered from their trip in to the store. As was mentioned in the video, the software and programs used in that particular store are extremely cheap and can and most likely will, be implemented into stores across the U.S. and most likely will follow suite in many other countries. In a matter of years stores will have a telephone book of its customers and this information will be passed around to other stores in the city, region, or even passed on to different countries. I do see the value in this for the producer and marketer, they are gathering information on the clientele and looking at ways of improving their marketing techniques and in developing future products. Where is the line in privacy, let alone ones personal space? I think that this is crossing the line, companies are gathering information on me then passing it around like a business card. I think this technology is going too far, what do you think?
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=9131638
Someone is always creeping