If you’re planning to dive into the Black Friday maelstrom, you might want to think about turning off your cell phone before you walk into the mall. That is, if you’re the type who passionately values your privacy.
In the latest encroachment by the quasi-government that is Corporate America, a couple of malls will experiment with tracking people’s movements as they wander from store to store by tracking radio emissions from their cell phones. This will be a lot subtler than some of the earlier strategies, which have even included hiring employees to stalk you through the mall. Forest City Commercial Management, which runs the malls in Southern California and in Virginia, claims this is not an invasion of your privacy because supposedly they can’t personally identify you without a court order.
Well. One man’s “not an invasion” is another man’s “get out of my face!” And as one reader pointed out, eventually computerized face recognition programs will make it easy enough to connect the image gathered as you enter the mall with the image you posted on Facebook. Nor is it impossible to imagine hackers breaking into the system and identifying users. If a hacker can do it, big business or government can hire the hacker to do it.
The only way to stop this intrusion is to turn off your cell phone before you enter the mall. Of course, that defeats the purpose of owning the cell phone, for which you pay a pretty penny: you wouldn’t have the thing if you didn’t want to be jangled up at every hour of the day and night, no matter where you happen to be or what you happen to be doing. But nevermind.
Hmm. Actually, this could be a good thing: wouldn’t it be nice to shop for a day without having to listen to people yapping on the phone?
While we’re in the silver lining department, this sort of news invariably makes me glad I can’t afford a cell phone and I can’t afford to shop in malls any more.
😀
Image: Appraiser, Escalator at Edmonton Mall. Public domain. Edmonton Mall is NOT one of the properties reported to track customers’ cell phones.
I propose a reasonable countermeasure. In an age where all of your information is trackable, I suggest it’s every rational citizen’s duty to deface and obfuscate their own information to render it useless to the Machine.
So leave your cellphone ON. Walk into the mall. First, visit Victoria’s Secret (especially if you fall outside of their target demographic) then go to the discount pet store. Then, walk leisurely across the mall from two precise points – say, the food court and the mall security office – several times, without stopping. Then leave by a different entrance than you came in by.
Let’s see them data-mine THAT. If enough people did this, we’d see them pushing discount puppy kibble next to the push-up bras.
@vinny: I do stupidly random stuff like that all the time when I can’t remember where I’m supposed to go or why I’m there. WIN!
@ Vinny: We could call our movement not Occupy but “Stumble Malls.”