DutchNews.nl,
Thursday 23 January 2014
 |
Customers
should be able to choose
whether they followed through WiFi:
CPB (Nos)
|
Technology
website Tweakers says the Bas Group, which operates the Dixons, Mycom and
iCentre stores has admitted using the tracking technology and this week has
rolled it out in all 160 shops.
Other
companies have also looked at wifi tracking, Tweakers says. ProRail has used it
in the past, to monitor how passengers use Groningen railway station. And
supermarket group Jumbo, which admits looking into wifi tracking last summer,
would not say if it had taken the plunge.
Privacy
According
to the Dutch privacy watchdog CBP, shops should always inform customers if they
are being tracked. The Bas Group does not consider this necessary because ‘all
shops use systems to count customers’, Tweakers said.
The system
takes advantage of the wifi cards which all smart phones are equipped with and
which look constantly for networks to join. Shops use special equipment to pick
up each phone’s wifi card, learning its unique ID number and then using this to
follow the phone as people move through the shop.
The
information is not personalised but shops can use it to cross reference with
other data and build up a detailed picture of their customers, Tweakers says.
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