How does in-store measurement work without identifying anyone?
In-store measurement works by counting presence and behaviour in aggregate, so the output is a number of shoppers rather than a named shopper. Sensor-based analytics and consented mobile location data enable targeting in in-store environments 1. Passive Wi-Fi collects anonymised data on customer numbers, dwell time and recurrence 1. A department store can use customer presence data to measure each zone in real time to guide staffing levels, and historically to compare traffic between zones and across stores 1.
How the anonymity is preserved
- Camera-based counting can run on existing CCTV cameras with no footage stored or transmitted, producing only anonymised counts 2.
- Staff can be separated from visitors by wearing an RFID or Bluetooth tag that sensors detect and flag as staff 2.
- Mature Wi-Fi-based tracking systems use data from customer smartphones to track behaviour patterns anonymously, in line with data privacy laws like GDPR, with permission requested during the Wi-Fi login 3.
- Some retail analytics technologies identify no individual shopper and neither record nor retain images of individual shoppers, and face detection limits collection to age and gender 4.
Where the limits sit
The ability to do 1:1 measurement in the in-store space is limited today and may be further affected by privacy regulation in future 1. The threshold for achieving person-level measurement in a census-based environment is high, because identifying a cookie, advertising ID or device as a unique person persistently across a measurement period is difficult 5. A privacy question remains where an individual is not identified yet is targeted as part of a group and surveilled without full awareness of the practice, and the Canadian Privacy Commissioners found in the Cadillac Fairview case that retained pieces of information mattered 4.