Digital Signage, an Invasion of Privacy?

Crossing the Line with Digital Signage

Is personalized advertisements an invasion of privacy? According to an article found online at InsuranceJournal.com, this could in fact be the next step for digital signage marketing. An interview with Brian Mennecke, an ISU associate professor of MIS, discusses the next generation of digital signage advertising, which may include facial recognition software that taps into a database of a person's likes and dislikes. According to the professor, the software (which has yet to be developed) could potentially link a face to his or her Facebook or Google account, determining his or her likes and dislikes. From this information, the computer is able to determine what types of advertisements to display. So for example, say you were researched engagement rings online for your girlfriend. If you were to walk by one of these machines, it could potentially pull up jewelry advertisements, which could actually blow the entire surprise out of the water. What if you were researching something even more personal, such as a medical condition, and related ads were displayed in front of a public audience? Hopefully the potential developers of this software would take this into consideration and apply some sort of filter to avoid embarrassing customers. Instead, they would hopefully focus their results on a person's "likes" and "dislikes."

This however, draws to light the fact that nothing is private anymore. It's true, many of the revelations are from people "opting in" to utilizing an app; however many users are not aware of the information that is being distributed out to businesses. The technology is already there and is even being used by anti-terrorism efforts, according to the article. What's to say this information is sold to someone who may in turn use for bad? Sure, having the advantage of knowing what your target audience is interested in is great, but how do you think the customers will react when they find out how that information is obtained? A large part of being a successful marketer is instilling trust into customers. Personally, I would feel apprehensive about a company that goes through my Facebook profile just to find out my interests. A profile that's brought up from a database simply through the use of face-recognition software. As cool as the technology is, I'd rather have a bit of privacy when shopping.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2011/12/20/228141.htm

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