In the last few days, I’ve seen reports about a startup project that uses in-store cameras to recognize you visually when you walk in by scanning your face, looking you up in their database, and then sending you “deals” to you based on your “likes” you’ve registered in your Facebook account.
Creepy? Yes, I think so too. And inevitable.
The project is called “Facedeals”, and they say they’re not affiliated with Facebook, which is to say that they aren’t owned by Facebook, but they are clearly integrating with the Facebook platform somehow, and borrow their logo coloring and imagery from Facebook. Here’s a bit online about them: http://redpepperland.com/lab/details/facedeals
They’re so creepy that someone’s already created a “Some Ecard” about them:
Right now they’re test-marketing in Nashville, Tennessee. And they’re generating a lot of buzz. I first read about them in the Daily Mail, a UK paper.
Here’s a good 60-second report about them from Buzz:60:
So what do they mean for the future? Well …
- As a data professional, I say – the more data, the better, as long as we have the ability to process it, make sense of it, and turn it into actionable knowledge – and that appears to be the case here.
- As a private citizen, I say – it’s the same old story. More information in benevolent hands is fine. “Benevolent” is the key word here. History shows that governments and other large or influential organizations are not always so benevolent. But before continuing with that particular train of thought, the next logical question is … does our opinion about such things matter? If society concludes that it doesn’t like this sort of thing, can anything be done about it? Can this sort of technical development be stopped? I say – no, I doubt it. So the “benevolent” discussion becomes irrelevant.
So … next topics: how else can this sort of technology integration be leveraged for good? Improved? Thwarted? Those are the kind of questions that I believe matter most at this point.