Walmart Will Use Smart Shopping Carts To Secretly Collect Your Biometric Data
Walmart shopping carts are about to do a whole lot more.
This article is more than 2 years old
Everyone knows Big Brother is watching. You can’t go anywhere without your movements being tracked. Someone has their eye on you and now, if Walmart has their way, they will be collecting your biometric data that they claim is “all in the name of safety.”
The way Walmart plans to monitor your safety is with a patent (in the works as we speak) that calls for a “biometric feedback” shopping cart handle. This handle, if the patent goes through, will then measure a consumer’s heart rate, temperature, speed (that you walk?), and the amount of force you apply to the shopping cart handle while you’re cruising the store for the best deal. “Safety” at its finest.
With the gathered biometric data, the invasion of your personal privacy is then collected by a central computer server within the store. The Walmart shopper will be monitored to see if their measurements prove that they are not happy with their shopping experience. If that’s the case, then an alert will be sent to a customer service assistant who will then see if they can somehow make the shopping experience more enjoyable.
Apparently, this new biometric feedback from Walmart will also be able to curb the ability shoplifters have in testing out their five-finger discount skills. The collected data also will alert staff to those customers (aka potential thieves) who are squeezing the cart handle tighter than normal or if their heart rate is elevated. So, those of us who may be balance-challenged and need a tighter grip to stay upright or those out-of-shapers whose heart rate elevates by simply walking may need to be prepared to have a store-security pat-down.
If you think this technology, or perhaps invasion of privacy is a better term, isn’t already happening, then you just don’t understand where we are at in this day and age. There are some shopping entities already employing the use of Bluetooth technology as a way of tracking their customers around their stores. This technology includes something called “gaze detection” and it informs companies as to what is attractive to a potential customer in a window display or how they may feel about a certain product display.
As you may be aware, none of these “safety features” these stores are using are without the customer’s consent. There have been other issues concerning customers besides the invasion of privacy aspect. Some sensitive shoppers have complained of nasty symptoms like blurry vision and headaches, among other issues.
With the potential addition of the Walmart “smart” (aka privacy buster) shopping cart, they already use their patented technology to eavesdrop on their customers. What, didn’t you know?
In their patent filing, Walmart claimed their new technology is “an example system for capturing and analyzing sounds in a shopping facility.” They also call those kinds of systems “surveillance”, don’t they?
Not only have shoppers been introduced to the ways of invasive technology, so have workers. Amazon has been equipping its delivery vehicles with AI-enable cameras from Netradyne that record their drivers 100% of the time they are in the vehicle.
They are set up to flag drivers along their routes looking for driving safety infractions that include speeding, failure to stop at stop signs, and the infamous distracted driving.
So, that creepy feeling you get when you think someone is watching you? They are. Get used to it because there isn’t much we do in today’s world that is private anymore.
