CHOICE warns that retail stores are tracking visitors

Consumer group CHOICE has called for urgent reforms to the Privacy Act aimed at stopping retailers from tracking and recording customers in stores without their knowledge.

According to CHOICE consumer data advocate Kate Bower, stores have adopted a number of technologies to monitor customers when they shop in person, ranging from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tracking to more sophisticated facial analysis software.

“Worryingly, people are often completely unaware this kind of tech is being used,” Bower said. “CHOICE has significant concerns about the highly personal data this kind of technology is collecting, how it’s being used, and the lack of regulation surrounding it.”

Curtin University professor of consumer psychology and neuroscience Billy Sung said it is now common for shopping centres to deploy Bluetooth beacons that can be used to track shoppers’ movements throughout the centre. If Bluetooth has been enabled on a phone, consumers don’t even need to have a specific app open for these beacons to connect.

“As long as Bluetooth is enabled, a smartphone sends out ‘pings’ in search of a Bluetooth network, and the beacon detects these,” he said.

Likewise phones with Wi-Fi enabled can be detected by a tracker device or Wi-Fi access technology. “Most large shopping centres have that technology. They use it to assess traffic flows … and set the rent,” Sung said.

Some big brands are using this technology to provide customers with nudges about discounts and special offers while they are in proximity of a store, Sung added.

The next step is targeting customers with special details based on their identity, and some big brands are even implementing dynamic pricing based on demographic data about customers purchasing particular products, CHOICE said.

There has also been an increase in the use of surveillance technologies by brands, including deploying cameras inside billboards to serve up advertising based on guesses of nearby pedestrians’ age, gender and mood based on facial expressions, the consumer group warned.

Bower said the Privacy Act, which was developed in the 1980s, does not account for these new technologies. “Also, the types of personal information that were considered in need of legal protection were quite narrow. The information you gave was name and address, and maybe phone number. The law didn’t have in mind the kind of information that can be collected now,” she said.

“We know consumers are increasingly concerned about privacy and data collection, and the evidence has shown they have every right to be. We need new and amended protections under the Privacy Act to ensure people’s data is secure and not at risk of exploitation.”

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