I distinctly remember watching Minority Report about ten years ago and thinking what a clever film (proviso - brilliant actor though he is, I thought Colin Farrell was just a tad too young to play the part he portrayed) and thinking all that stuff is far in the future.
Not so:-
I read the other day that technology is now in common use which records when you enter a store, how many people are in the store and tracks your movements and where you go in that store (you do need a mobile with bluetooth to allow this - but we all have them and wi-fi tracking is being developed). It even tracks whether and for how long you stood outside the store before entering. Now this gives a wealth of information to retailers and they can tell which displays you went to, how long you spent there etc. Not too scary says you. Indeed, it will improve service - predict peak times so staff are there to cater for customers and provide us with what we actually want to see in that store. Also the bricks and mortar stores are only doing what has been done by online retailers for years. All of those cookies that we accept are tracking what we do and what we look at and once you look at a product it follows you around on every site you go to like some dementedly determined stalker.
So what is the issue? The way I see it is it is just another brick out of the wall that keeps chipping away at allowing a deluge of private information being made available to all and sundry. This is tracking your physical movement, what you are looking at and recording where you are in time and place. Admittedly, the information is masked at an individual level so it is not available to the shop. However, it is still there and individuals could be identifiable. Are there circumstances where that information could be available to certain parties or agencies? If you combine it with the mass of other data floating around it provides an unparalleled amount of information that could provide too tempting to resist to large public and private organisations. It begs the question do we have any right to privacy, does it matter or do we even care. From my observation, a lot of people don't. Perhaps it is a generational thing but each step, even if deemed negligible in isolation, makes the next step easier and more inevitable.
Incidentally, with IOS 7 Apple introduced iBeacon which allows a store to interact with shoppers from the moment they enter the store.
Don't get me wrong, this may improve the shopping experience and we need to help the High Street but wiser heads than mine need to consider all of the aspects and the overall societal cost of not only this aspect but all the other incremental analytical products coming down the line very soon. If you have any comments or observations, even if you think I am a scaremongering Luddite, please feel free to add a comment below.
By the way I revisited the new technologies in the film just to see what has actually transpired. When planning the movie and the screenplay Steven Spielberg got 15 global experts (futurologists if you like) together for 3 days to come up with the technological ideas and these formed the framework for the plot of the movie.
I have listed the current situation with the main ideas the movie introduced.
- Multi touch interfaces introduced in 2007
- Retina scanners introduced in 2010
- Insect robots being developed by US military
- Facial recognition advertising billboards to recognise and deliver personalised ads are in development
- Crime prediction software based on an alogrithm which supposedly predicts those most likely to offend proposed for trialling in Washington DC
- Electronic paper developed by various companies over the last few years but not yet finalised.
The really interesting thing is the film was made in 2002 but was set in 2050's. Even people in the know underestimate how fast technology is moving.
By the way if you haven't already, watch the movie it is really good. If for nothing else to see if you agree with my comment on Colin Farrell.
To be Continued
