Gillette Spying On Customers

So, how do you feel about a company spying on you? First they put radio tracking devices into their products, not unlike attaching a tracking collar to a wild animal. Now they have installed hidden cameras to take your picture, just like those used to photograph animals in the wild. How do you feel about having your picture secretly taken when you buy your next Gillette product?

Mary Starrett writes at News With Views:

Gillette was recently busted by a consumer privacy group for not only rigging their products with radio frequency i.d. (spy) chips but for developing "smart shelves" that snap pictures of customers as they pick up products. As I'm fond of saying-you can't make this stuff up. Were it not for the tireless dogging of this nonsense by one consumer watchdog group, you and I would never know that we might actually be PHOTOGRAPHED as we pulled a package of Mach 3 Turbo razors from the store shelf.

There is a site dedicated to a boycott of Gillette products which explains how it works:

The tracking system uses sensors hidden under Gillette shelves to detect when products are picked up. Whenever a shopper picks up a packet of razor blades from a spy shelf, SNAP! A hidden camera secretly takes a closeup photo of the shopper's face. (And a second photo is snapped at the cash register!) 

There are also pictures on that site, so make sure you go visit it. So far the hidden cameras have only been caught in England, but who knows where else they have been? Do you think that perhaps your picture has been taken lately?

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• RFID Tags: Ethics & Privacy