These days you can’t even throw on your sweats and go grab a rotisserie chicken for dinner without technology tracking your every move.
Now, retailer giant Walmart will soon be collecting your biometric data that they claim is “all in the name of safety.” You can’t go anywhere without your movements being tracked. Someone has their eye on you and now.
Walmart’s proposed smart shopping cart will watch your movements and analyze where you like to go within the store. Each cart will have an array of sensors that follow your every movement, and even track things like walking speed and your body temperature.
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.
Sensors would collect the information and upload it to Walmart’s servers, where it would be analyzed for signs of shopper distress, according to the patent for a “System and Method for a Biometric Feedback Cart Handle.”
Walmart has filed a patent for smart cart technology.
Additionally, Walmart might use audio recordings to listen to what you talk about while in the store. They plan to use this at checkout to monitor cashiers and customers.
Walmart stated in its patent application, called ‘Listening to the Frontend:’
“A need exists for ways to capture the sounds resulting from people in the shopping facility and determine the performance of employees based on those sounds.”
AMW also reported:
In the patent, Walmart claimed that they need to be “always thinking about new concepts and ways that will help us further enhance how we serve customers. This patent is a concept that would help us gather metrics and improve the checkout process by listening to sounds produced by the bags, carts and cash registers and not intended for any other use.”
If Walmart is listening to your conversations and tracking your heartbeat in-store, will you continue to shop at the giant retailer? Does this type of technology make you feel like your privacy is being violated? Or is it just “good business?”
Source: AWM