Tesco to scan your face

Yahoo are also spying on emails, so don't forget to boycott them too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ing-customer-emails-targeted-advertising.html



Who's left to use that doesn't spy on you BTW?

 

Royal Mail's not safe, the letter I got from Noisette had been opened.

 

They can look at my internet use/emails as much as they want. I have adblock so it has no impact on my life. It's free (after the line is paid for), so that's fine. But when I'm actually giving money to a large (and frankly morally bankrupt) corporation they have no right to spy on me! I know that we're subjected to it every time we use our card, but my card only comes out if I have no cash on me (or mail order), so to an extent I control that.

Slight change of tack here to show that spying is not all bad. Every so often I get from Nectar some weekly money off vouchers for Sainsburys. I use them (the latest lot is for between £4 and £8 off every time I spend £30 or more over the next four weeks) until they've all gone, get my 500 bonus Nectar points and then stop using Sainsburys again. After about five or six weeks I get another lot through! All that I buy is stuff that I'll use that's on special offer! Last time I left with twenty Parazone (Sues bleach of choice) that was half price, a load of reduced cheese (it was lots too) from the cheese counter, and Yorkshire tea bags on BOGOF/100% extra free (can't remember) for just over £17! So if we're being honest, I guess that we all take advantage of the modern "spy culture" in one way or another.

 

That's just one tactic we use, together with checking on my supermarket.com for stuff that's much cheaper elsewhere, although not at Sainsburys, but crafting the shop so as to get a price 'brand match' voucher printed out, meaning we've boosted the total value of your shop to reach the spend threshold, but still effectively get your stuff at the cheaper price another store is charging. Another tactic is to buy ten pounds worth of reduced/special offer items together with a £10 'try me free' product (see MSE threads) so your say £2 off a £20 shop becomes a £2 off £10 of bargains shop. Sometimes there's an online money off voucher for those try me free items and sometimes you can also wangle a 'brand match' voucher. Then there's the instore cashback offers (Quidco & Topcashback) where you can upload a receipt pic and get further money off, including off of reduced stuff, often making it free (and with TCB boosting your Clubcard Points). Lots of those tactics often overlap and with a little ingenuity can get you shopping bills quite a bit. And last but not least, Sainsburys multi-saves work at full price on reduced stuff, sometimes getting the cost down to pennies, but you have to be aware of this if trying to achieve a certain total spend in order to use a voucher.

But probably best discussed on http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/the-supermarket-savings-thread.48637/page-4#post-742103 to avoid going off topic here.

 

These two points are the ones which are prominent in my thinking too.

First point: "the logical progression". Once they are using this technology, we become immune to it. Once we become immune to it, there is a real potential for it to develop further (and without protest!) until we are being 'scanned' for less obvious reasons, but just as invasive.

Second point: "spending £millions on it".
Do you *really* believe that they will be able to recoup that investment simply from the advertising? Yeah, right!

 

Never use Tesco and a another good reason not to get in scanning distance of the place.
How about a week where nobody uses Tesco?
A kind of shoppers protest, there are loads of other places to go.

 

I've been on an 8 week quest of abstinence from Mr T's (not that I was a committed customer prior to this) ... ever since I was commanded to "Step over there and unpack all your bags ... " from a scan and shop debacle (talk about mortifying!)
I'm very satisfied with my High Street shop as a direct consequence. (Yes, I am captured on CCTV, but hey, I'm not being scrutinised for my purchasing history in the meantime )Nor are assumptions being made based on my facial features in addition to my purchase history!

Actually, now I come to think more about it: my purchase history is far more indicative of my potential future purchases than my facial scan could ever be!

Let's suppose that a facial scan would pigeon hole someone into a gender of (e.g.) female - age range - 30/40 - this would lead to a wide potential in advertising products! However, those products may vary depending on: is that female married? Partnered? Single? Have children? Career focussed? Transgender? Homosexual? Childless? Vegetarian? Vegan? Lactose intolerant? A gluten free consumer? A pet owner? Alcoholic? Smoker/Non-smoker? Had a hysterectomy? Still ovulating?

By contrast: let's go by purchase history: female products, child products, beauty products, preference toward fruit and vegetable based products, fresh as opposed to frozen/tinned, the occasion male product (he doesn't deserve "spoiling" ), home baking products rather than ready-meals? Pet foods? Wow! That really does narrow the focus!

So *why* facial scanning for target marketing?
It's too broad, not focussed enough in comparison to purchase history (which already exists and is well established - especially via loyalty incentives!

It simply doesn't make economic sense in marketing investment IF it is being introduced for the reasons stated: target marketing! So, you cannot help but question the integrity of its introduction *if* the reasons being put forward are genuine.

 

I think they use the time of day you're out and about, plus even the weather to assist in profiling you, so if out and about during the 'school run' time they'll use that to profile you as a parent/child minder/etc., and if you only venture out mid-week when it's warm they'll have you marked down as a retired crumbly.

 

And both could be deduced via purchase history (time, date etc.,) and without facial scanning

If you're out and about in Tesco at school run time, I would argue you are neither a parent, or a child minder ... because at *that* time, you would be parked up, outside a school, awaiting the appearance of your "charge" (best time to shop for those without dependents/charges!)

Retired/crumblies venture out ... after pension day payout and are too 'ard to worry about the weather (they did rationing, and weather didn't factor into it when it came to getting their rations! )

But, I do get your point. However, if the facial recognition is being rolled out in petrol stations, your argument is flawed because business people will fill up at whatever time of day/night their engines dictate and is not weather/school time dependent (in the main).

 

In marketing circles, data is everything. Currently they have your purchase history if you use a loyalty card, and they can (and do) buy back data from Experian and Equifax to get such data if you pay on your credit/debit card, but what they can not tell is how many people that walked through the doors were paying with their husband/wife/parent's card and therefore whether the purchase that has been recorded against a given demographic is actually linked to the right demographic.

Lets be a bit old fashioned and sexist for a moment. Lets say that in a particular neighbourhood, 80% of the purchases are made by middle aged, wealthy men. The profiling data (look up ACORN and MOSAIC for example) have these down as affluent males, no kids, luxury car drivers, professional. So the list brokers, armed with all this data, sell the lists to marketing companies (as they do) and these middle aged, wealthy, professional men (ie the target demographic) start getting junk mail advertising the latest cosmetics, or the latest sexy dress, or, I dunno, the latest washing up liquid

The chaps receive such marketing rubbish, see it isn't advertising the latest Bentley/Porshe/Lexus, or the latest Armani suit, and chuck it straight in the bin. So the company that sent it loses lots of money having accidentally mailed completely the wrong demographic.

Now lets take that exact same situation, only we'll throw into the mix the face scanning thing. Now, the sale data still shows exactly the same as before, ie 80% of the sales go to affluent middle aged men, but the scanning data says that actually, when these sales happened, the shop contained 85% women aged 20-30. So what we have here is two sets of data to cross check against each other. So what we now have is data that is infinitely more valuable. Now we can say that in that specific neighbourhood, there are a lot of affluent middle aged males who happily let their young ladies spend their money. That gives us a whole new picture of the demographic distribution, and an opportunity for much more focused marketing. Those young women, using their husband's credit/debit cards, were previously an unrecognised high value demographic. So now, its a quick case of cross reference against the electoral role, linking the address of the card holder to other adults in the same house, and then the wives get spammed with adverts for all sorts of expensive things to buy on their husband's cards. But more than that, this might be a highly unusual situation, which will be borne out by data from other stores, so by cross referencing this extra set of data, you get even more detail about the customers and more importantly, potential customers based on the same demographic analysis. So, in one area the wealthy men are 'keeping' young wives, while in another area, the situation is different. Cross ref that against existing data by postcode, and now you know where to set up a new store, what to stock in it, when to open it, how to lay out the stock, and who to spam with what junk mail.

Now would be a good time to set up in business as a list broker, because the data is about to become a whole lot more valuable.

 

Personally, I don't give a fig if Tesco (or anybody else) find out I'm keeping a young wife as I don't have loads of money to spend.

 

You'll be ok then. If it doesn't bother you, that's ok. Your choice. Some might like the option to choose not be scanned and profiled. It would be nice if we had a choice

 

Yes, not everybody can wangle young wives.

 

It would be useful in situations when you've got a captive audience but no data based on previous spending. People waiting in queues, for example. They've obviously decided that focussed marketing is the way to go, facial recognition is about the only option when you've got a random queue of people. Even if it's a very crude picture it's probably more effective than random advertising in those situations.