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November 18, 2004
We're pretty sure there were no store loyalty cards in 1984...
At a speech yesterday to drum up support for the government’s controversial identity card scheme, David Blunkett claimed that the real threat to people’s privacy comes from store loyalty cards:
The Home Secretary said that the public needed to wake up to the fact that personal information they supply to retailers and banks is far more detailed than the personal information that will be collected on the ID card database.
"It is time people got real about what is happening to them," he said. "A lot of information about where people shop and who they bank with is valuable business information and is sold on to other companies."
Launching a broadside against concerns over the privacy of personal ID data, Blunkett argued that if the public was happy to disclose a wide range of sensitive data to private companies, it should not be concerned about disclosing data to the government, which is more tightly regulated.
Yes, loyalty cards have a lot of information on them, but that information is put to use not only for the companies but also for the consumer. By knowing more about its shoppers, the store learns how better to accommodate its clientele. Presumably, everyone wins.
Of course, you may still find the idea of a store tracking your shopping habits a bit creepy, and decide against signing up. What Mr Blunkett ignores in his argument is that when you walk into Boots or Marks and Spencers, and they ask you if you would like to sign up for their loyalty card programme to become a preferred customer, you can simply say, ‘No thanks’. If the Home Office gets its way, when the state starts demanding you pay for the privilege of receiving these ID cards, ‘no thanks’ will not be an option.
Posted by at November 18, 2004 04:23 PM
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