High-tech recycling bins in London have recorded data from more than 1 million passing smartphones:
Renew, the startup behind the scheme, installed 100 recycling bins with digital screens around London before the 2012 Olympics. Advertisers can buy space on the internet-connected bins, and the city gets 5 percent of the airtime to display public information. More recently, though, Renew outfitted a dozen of the bins with gadgets that track smartphones. The idea is to bring internet tracking cookies to the real world. The bins record a unique identification number, known as a MAC address, for any nearby phones and other devices that have Wi-Fi turned on. That allows Renew to identify if the person walking by is the same one from yesterday, even her specific route down the street and how fast she is walking.
Why? Advertising, of course:
The scope for new advertising methods offered by this data is remarkable. For example, If Costa Coffee knows that the iPhone with MAC address A8-23-RR-XX usually stops in around 8 in the morning for a coffee and a croissant (don’t forget, this technology could be extended into the stores themselves) is now heading to Pret for a morning pick-me-up, then they might pay to flash an advert on a relevant bin just as the A8-23-RR-XX is approaching, reminding him of a loyalty scheme or a special offer.
Matt Brian is worried about confidentiality:
Renew’s approach is likely to attract attention — both U.K. and E.U. privacy laws require companies to notify consumers they are being tracked and allow them to opt out. Even if the company fixes notices around its trash cans or uses digital signage to warn people walking past it, Renew isn’t able to provide an easy way for them to immediately tell the company that they don’t wish to participate.
David Meyer calls this “yet another reminder of the growing tensions between big data and privacy”:
If you’re trying to harness the vast amounts of data emanating from smartphones and other personal computing devices – even if you anonymize that data once you’ve collected it – it’s very difficult to guarantee that personal data can’t be extracted afterwards. And in this case, the identifying information can’t even be easily stripped out, because it’s the very information the data-gathering exercise is designed to collect.
Lex Berko, who dug up the above promotional video, is just weirded out:
While there are several aspects to this plan that are unsettling, the one that vexes me the most is how little Renew seems to grasp that this idea is unsettling in the first place. On a certain level, it’s understandable—it’s a business and it’s probably not be the best practice for a business to publicly admit that something it’s doing is sneaky. … Renew doesn’t seem to comprehend that most people wouldn’t like to be followed everywhere they go by anything, no matter what it is, let alone by a series of recycling bins with ulterior motives.
Following such criticisms, the bins have been shut down.
The Dish 