Retail Privacy

WPF on CES Panel on Facial Recognition

Facial recognition -- Pam Dixon spoke at a CES panel on privacy issues in facial recognition technologies as part of the Leaders in Technology program at CES. The panel was moderated by Tony Romm of Politico and included FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen and Harley Geiger, legislative counsel for Representative Zoe Lofgren. Dixon spoke on the need for increased work on consumer options in a "sensor rich environment where there is no option to opt out by walking out." Referenced in the panel was WPF's report on digital signage and facial recognition, The One-Way Mirror Society.

WPF comments about Personal Health Records and online advertising

Health privacy -- The World Privacy Forum filed comments today about how medical records and other health information is intersecting with online advertising and online activities. The WPF comments were filed with the Department of Health and Human Services in response to its request for comments on personal health records, privacy, and social media.

Good privacy decision in Amazon v. Lay fight to keep customer information private

Resource | case file -- Amazon.com filed a lawsuit in April to fight the North Carolina Department of Revenue's request for detailed information on Amazon.com customers. The North Carolina tax department requested Amazon.com to hand over "all information for all sales to customers with a North Carolina shipping address" between 2003 to 2010. In the decision, Seattle, Washington U.S. District Court Judge Marsha J. Pechman wrote, "Citizens are entitled to receive information and ideas through books, films, and other expressive materials anonymously." She also stated that "The fear of government tracking and censoring one\'s reading, listening, and viewing choices chills the exercise of First Amendment rights." This is an important decision for privacy rights, and online privacy in particular.

Digital Signage Privacy Principles for Consumers: Nation's leading consumer groups release new privacy principles

Digital Signage Privacy Principles -- The nation's leading consumer and privacy groups released a set of baseline consumer privacy principles to be included in digital signage networks. The principles were released at the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, where World Privacy Forum executive director Pam Dixon spoke about the principles to a large group of digital signage industry professionals.

Digital Signage Privacy Principles: Critical policies and practices for digital signage networks

Download Digital Signage Privacy Principles (PDF) or Read the Principle below ----- February 25, 2010 New forms of sophisticated digital signage networks are being deployed widely by retailers and others in both public and private spaces. Capabilities range from simple people-counting sensors mounted on doorways to sophisticated, largely invisible facial ...

WPF Report: One-Way-Mirror Society - Privacy Implications of the new Digital Signage Networks

This 2010 WPF report, The One Way Mirror Society, explores new forms of sophisticated digital signage networks and their privacy implications in the US and other countries. Digital signage networks are being deployed widely by retailers and others in both public and private spaces. From simple people-counting sensors mounted on doorways to sophisticated facial recognition cameras mounted in flat video screens and end-cap displays, digital signage technologies are gathering increasing amounts of detailed information about consumers, their behaviors, and their characteristics.

One-Way-Mirror Society: Introduction - What is digital signage and why care about its privacy implications?

The digital signage networks this report addresses are bi-directional. These networks give information to viewers while they capture information from viewers and send it back to a home base. In the digital signage industry, the new technologies are often compared to the interactive signs from the movie Minority Report. [1] In the movie, large-screen video billboards recognized individual consumers and delivered personalized advertisements to each person. The movie version of the digital signs and billboards relied on an iris scan to customize the ads. Today’s modern digital signs rely on advanced video analytics and sophisticated cameras and sensors.

One-Way-Mirror Society: Overview of key digital signage capabilities in place today

The best way to understand the capabilities of digital signage today and how it is being used is to see the digital signage industry’s newly minted Recommended Code of Conduct for Consumer Tracking Methods (See Appendix A for complete document). This document on consumer tracking methods in digital signage was written and agreed upon entirely by industry members, without any participation by consumer representatives. The document reflects the advances in technology in this area and where the possibilities for abuse lay. The opening of the document reads:

One-Way-Mirror Society: Lower and Medium Privacy Risk Consumer Tracking Technologies

Heat maps and path tracking technologies essentially generate maps of where consumers spend the most time standing and walking in stores. (Figure 2). One product, PathTracker, uses RFID chips for large store tracking, and video tracking technology for smaller stores or sub-areas within stores.

One-Way-Mirror Society: High Privacy Risk Consumer Tracking Technologies

Facial recognition technology was initially developed for security purposes, but it has found a new use in digital signage for marketing and ad targeting purposes. Essentially, the process is that a camera captures an individual’s image, then checks it against algorithms that analyze at least 80 facial characteristics, such as distance between eyes, length of the face, width of the face, depth of eye sockets, and so forth. [48] Layers of algorithms are used to crunch the facial information into determinations about a person’s age bracket, gender, and ethnicity. The next efforts are going toward coding the facial expressions of shoppers to “capture their emotional reactions to in-store environments.” [49]

One-Way-Mirror Society: Consumer Responses to Digital Signage and Privacy Issues

Few consumers are aware that watching a video screen or interacting with a kiosk may mean they are being recorded and having their behavior, gender, age, and ethnicity analyzed. As a result, there has not been a robust public discussion of how consumers feel about these technologies.

One-Way-Mirror Society: What are the specific privacy issues posed by digital signage networks / what risks exist?

Security Camera Footage: Repurposing footage for marketing and profit Perhaps the most egregious repurposing of data is the use of security camera footage for store marketing purposes. From the industry literature, this appears to be an established business practice at this point. It is one that needs to be examined closely.

One-Way-Mirror Society: Recommendations

There is no public awareness of the capabilities of digital signage, and that has to change before for any debate over regulation or legislation can start. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify from other privacy arenas the types of standards that should be considered for users of digital signage. Full recommendations will only be possible at a later stage. Here are some preliminary ideas.

One-Way-Mirror Society: Conclusion

New forms of sophisticated digital sign networks are being deployed widely by retailers and others in both public and private spaces. Few consumers, legislators, regulators, or policy makers are aware of the capabilities of digital signs or of the extent of their use. The technology presents new problems and highlights old conflicts about privacy, public spaces, and the need for a meaningful debate. The privacy problems inherent in digital networks are profound, and to date these issues have not been adequately addressed by anyone.

One-Way-Mirror Society: Appendix A - POPAI Recommended Code of Conduct for Consumer Tracking Methods

The following document is the recommended code of conduct for businesses engaging in consumer tracking. The document is entirely non-binding, and was created entirely by industry participants. The document is reproduced here in full with no changes. Best Practices: Recommended Code of Conduct for Consumer Tracking Methods