Big Brother Watch Calls for FootPath Opt-Out

UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch has called for foot traffic monitoring firm Path Intelligence to give consumers the chance to opt out of its system, which tracks their mobile phone signals as they move around shopping centres.

Portsmouth-based Path Intelligence's FootPath system enables shopping centre managers to obtain data on how many people are in a store at a specific time, how long they stay there, and what their preferred routes are as they move around a centre.

However, Path Intelligence insists that no personal data is collected and that consumers who don't want to be tracked can turn off their mobile phones when they enter the centre or shop.

Big Brother Watch has stepped in with an article entitled 'Shopper snooping or innocent monitoring', which questions whether the lack of an opt-out option has 'ethical implications' and infringes consumers' rights.

The group's Nick Pickles believes the law needs to be tightened in response to such phone-tracking systems, and that it is 'wrong' for a shopping center to assume it has the automatic right to track consumers' movements.

'People are right to be worried that their mobile phones can be turned into tracking devices very easily, without their permission or knowledge,' he states. 'While we have been given assurances that the FootPath technology is not capable of capturing personal information or sending communications to people's phones, other technologies which would allow this are available, [and] such tracking and communications would be a significant intrusion on privacy.'

At the end of November, US Senator Charles Schumer urged Path Intelligence to give shoppers an opt-in option before tracking their movements. While the technology is already in place in malls in Europe and Australia, it had never before been used in the US, and while two US malls adopted the FootPath system, implementation was halted once Schumer had raised concerns.

Web sites: www.pathintelligence.com and www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.