Jonathan Hedley » privacy http://jonathanhedley.com Winning at everything so that you don't have to. Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:25:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Shops track customers via mobile phone http://jonathanhedley.com/links/2008/05/shops-track-customers-via-mobile-phone http://jonathanhedley.com/links/2008/05/shops-track-customers-via-mobile-phone#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 09:52:40 +0000 Jonathan Hedley http://jonathanhedley.com/?p=143 This system from Path Intelligence tracks people in a shopping mall by triangulating on their mobile phone. It can uniquely (but anonymously) identify people by the IMEI (a unique serial number) of their phone.

It would be a fascinating source of data to mine: paths through malls, shopping habits, how people behave differently on their own or when in a group; all kinds of things. But it does seem quite invasive; I think I would feel quite uncomfortable being under such close a gaze. Perhaps if they dropped the IMEI identification and only looked and aggregated trends.

Seems to be quite excitingly priced at around £20,000 a month to rent.

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