But the Miami-Dade Cop is a piker compared with Tesco
Posted by Bruce Johnson
From London, Tuesday's Guardian reports that the supermarket chain Tesco "is quietly building a profile of you, along with every individual in the country - a map of personality, travel habits, shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are. A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called Crucible, that is collating detailed information on every household in the UK, whether they choose to shop at the retailer or not."
Indeed, the company's stock is up on news of the massive database.
Proponents of the value of an EU-type privacy directive regulatory system will be interested in learning that: "Attempts by a number of Guardian reporters to retrieve their own personal information under the Data Protection Act led to a four month battle; the request was ultimately denied so the Guardian has appealed to the Information Commissioner."
According to the newspaper, Crucible goes much further than other information collection systems by "pooling data from several sources and then using the vast Clubcard data pool to profile customers." The system can "generate a map of how an individual thinks, works and, more importantly, shops. The map classifies consumers across 10 categories: wealth, promotions, travel, charities, green, time poor, credit, living style, creature of habit and adventurous."
One Guardian reporter did get access to her own personal information, and discovered:
Apparently, I'm a gal who hankers after "finer foods"- indeed, a "natural chef", though friends tell me this probably has more to do with my tendency to cook with natural ingredients than any signs of being a budding Nigella. I am, Tesco determines, "upmarket" - a reference, I suspect, to my habit of buying organic food (Green & Blacks mint chocolate being a particular favourite). . . . Most importantly for the supermarket, I just don't spend as much as I could there. Under "share of spend" with Tesco I am deemed to have "potential".
(Interestingly, in the UK, consumers can get access to their personal data by making a Freedom of Information Act request -- for more information on this procedure, see www.guardian.co.uk/foi.)