Privacy campaigners slam shopper tracking tech
Monitoring technology used in shopping centres to track customers' movements via their mobile phones has come under fire from civil rights campaigners, who claim that it invades people's privacy.
FootPath technology, manufactured by UK company Path Intelligence, uses signals from a shopper's mobile phone to pinpoint their position to within two meters. The data collected is then fed back to a processing centre, where it is analysed in order to track the movement of consumers and establish shopping patterns.
Path Intelligence says the technology enables organisations to optimise the layout of their space and improve their productivity, by understanding how people are moving around within it. However, Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, describes the technology as “a serious threat to personal privacy,” and Nick Pickles of campaign group Big Brother Watch warns there is a risk that technology is moving faster than the law.
