Until recently, the positioning process of products (product placement) in a store depended almost exclusively on plain (commercial) intuition. There wasn’t a solid way to predict and/or measure which grouping of products would be the most profitable. Questions like, should we put the beer next to other alcoholic beverages, or is it more profitable to put it next to the diaper department, could not be answered straight-away and/or supported by facts. And another one: what are the peak hours of our store in receiving the most visitors/prospects during the day, so we can adjust our personnel based on those fluctuations? Since a couple of years, there is a low-tech solution to answer those questions: Wi-Fi tracking.
The technique of Wi-Fi tracking is based on the fact that mobile phones are emitting signals constantly. Mobile phones do not wait in a passive state until a public network found them to connect with, but they are emitting signals to actively search for those public networks. When searching for a local Wi-Fi network, the mac-address of each phone is emitted. Each mac-address is unique for a mobile device and, in most cases, a mobile device is unique for one person. How can this simple technology feature be transformed into an information goldmine? Multiple start-ups have found different ways to monitor these mac-addresses with specialized hardware and software. Raw data emitted by you is processed using advanced software to deliver meaningful information to the store about your behaviour on the spot. And the store is able to adjust their commercial offerings to you: your own, involuntary provided, information is used against you. Therefore, it is interesting for stores and other instances to possess and use your information to increase their revenue.
Wi-Fi Tracking isn’t only beneficial for stores only, it is used by other types of organizations as well, although for other purposes. Cities, event organizers, and amusement parks also measure, store, and use mac addresses to gather customer insights. For instance, they use this technique to convert movements of large crowds into flow mappings, on which you can see how customers walk and where they spend the most time (and money, when linked to point-of-sale data). As you might imagine, this can lead to great insights in logistics, consumer behaviour, and how and where to increase revenue.
But is this legal? The answer is yes, even though there is a lot of debate going on about this subject. However, some limitations apply. When individuals are being followed in a store, the data can be saved for a maximum of 24 hours. After that period the data must be directly destroyed or irreversibly be made anonymous. Can you fight and prevent this “involuntary data loss”?
Consumers, like you and me, still possess a very powerful weapon to fight this unsolicited tracking of Wi-Fi signals: simply turning off our Wi-Fi should do the trick!
Unfortunately, the ugly truth is that a lot of people aren’t aware that they are tracked in this way nor that they care about their privacy enough to prevent this. If it is invisible, it is not happening, right? No, wrong! It is happening, every day, every hour, every minute, by everybody, anywhere.
References
Sapiezynski P, Stopczynski A, Gatej R, Lehmann S (2015) Tracking Human Mobility Using WiFi Signals. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130824.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130824
Dear Max, thank you for your blog! Very interesting topic indeed, and to be honest, I am not surprised that we are been tracked. It surprises me that a lot of people are unaware of this fact, and unfortunately companies might mis-use that. However, I also think it is very valuable to certain companies. For example, Albert Heijn now has Wi-Fi in many of their stores, and once you enter you can easily connect. While a lot of people may think it is convenient, these data can give Albert Heijn a tremendous advantage in seeing how customer actually move through their store. Even if this data can be only be stored for 24 hours, you can still analyze these data within the time frame. I wonder, how do governments know these data are really being stored for only 24 hours? Who checks this? I find it hard to believe these valuable data would only be stored for such a short amount of time. What I also think your blog relates back to is the information privacy concept; Information is valuable (such as in the form of data), but who ensures your privacy? I think these questions are not easily answered and allow for a lot of debate. Your blog definitely made me think!
Dear Ananda,
Thanks for you comment, I had absolutely no idea that i was being tracked while doing groceries! Not that it surprises me though.. Good question about the government. The answer is: they don’t. However, there are certain Big Data programs which let you store the data gathered for just 24 hours before processing it into usable information, there will probably also be programs who do not have that kind of restrictions. I personally believe the government must play a bigger role in this discussion with leading Wi-Fi tracking providers, for instance with the company WiFi Profs. I even hope these discussions will have positive outcomes for both stakeholders, since information gathered with Wi-Fi tracking could benefit a lot of customers. Who doesn’t want less long waiting time in de Jumbo, AH or IKEA?
I also agree with the fact that whenever the data is used for non-personal advantages, using data gathered from a shopping crowd won’t do any harm. But what happens when mac-addresses fall into the wrong hands, and someone does find a way to decrypt the mac-addresses back to certain mobile phones, which is equal to a human being? This would be a huge impact on your privacy.
Hi Max, great post and very interesting subject! I personally don’t see Wi-Fi tracking as a violation of privacy if they would only track the customers inside the store or event. Surveillance cameras or employees could also do the same thing. But people should be aware of the fact that they’re being tracked and what kind of information the stores is gathering. They should be informed about the Wi-Fi tracking system and have the possibility to say no to it.
Besides the discussion if it’s a violation of privacy, there are also benefits for customers. The data from the tracking will provide the organizations with a better understanding of the customer’s behavior. They can use that knowledge to improve the customer’s experience, which is a positive outcome. For example the organizations have a better understanding of how many customers are present at all hours and can make sure there are enough employees to help the customers. Maybe if the stores inform the customers about the positive outcomes for them, they would see that the Wi-Fi tracking doesn’t necessarily is a bad method.