Digital Wallpaper
September 15th, 2008 by Harley Geiger
Television screens increasingly blaze in spaces outside of homes. In many settings, particularly at retail establishments, the TVs are perpetually tuned to a channel with nothing but commercials. In other instances, such as schools and government offices, the screens flash announcements and public safety information. This up-and-coming medium goes by different names, including captive audience networks, but the most common is digital signage.
Now, in a development with significant privacy implications, digital signage is slowly integrating identification technologies. The purpose is to boost audience measurement and exposure. The industry’s eventual wish is to target advertising to individual consumers based on demographics and shopping history.
Currently, most digital signs are just flat screens displayed in some trafficked area, playing a video loop. The contents of the video are often controlled via computer, enabling one master location to control thousands of connected units. However, from an advertiser’s perspective, a shortcoming of digital signage and billboards is the difficulty in determining who sees the display unit. This makes it difficult for advertisers or others to measure the size of the message’s audience and to target specific demographics within that audience. The industry’s solution appears to be teensy-weensy facial recognition cameras.
These cameras can calculate a passerby’s age, gender, and race, and also determine how long an individual stays hypnotized by the display. This data is stored in a central database. The advertisement on the screen can then change to match the consumer. A similar effect is also being achieved with other technologies, such as Bluetooth and radio frequency identification (RFID). Proctor and Gamble set up a system at German retailer Metro Extra in which RFID tags embedded in product packaging generate related ads on nearby digital signs. In 2007, French retailer Gedenim installed a system in which RFID-equipped loyalty cards prompt targeted advertisements on digital signage kiosks. This is similar to a system Sprint demonstrated at a trade show in 2004. Both the Sprint and Gedenim systems identify individual shoppers and tailor advertising to their shopping histories. Gedenim’s digital signage system was also scheduled sometime this year to display ads triggered by the presence of mobile phones.
At least some companies that operate these systems vow never to collect individually identifiable data or store and share any images. But there’s little reason to believe this will be the industry norm in years to come. The trade associations’ websites, (DSA , OVAB and POPAI ) mention nothing of substance about privacy. Interestingly, the famous advertising scenes (particularly this one and this one ) in the movie Minority Report are often referenced, almost as an industry benchmark.
Digital signage privacy isn’t a frontline issue right now because the medium has yet to mature. A recent Infotrends study indicates that there are about 630,000 displays at 97,000 locations in the U.S., and only a fraction of those include identification technology. The biggest barrier to growth is the high cost of entry, but the components are steadily decreasing in cost and size. This is a billion-dollar business that grew at an annual rate of 56% over three years, and Infotrends forecasts continued double-digit growth into 2011. And by then, surely, the technology of the day will make all sorts of spooky things possible.
We are still some years away from a situation where consumers have nowhere to run or hide from an onslaught of advertising displays that call to them by name. However, it is clear that consumers will be increasingly entertained and persuaded by personalized digital media as they go through their daily routines, whether consumers want it or not. Now is the time to start considering the privacy issues, before they are dismissed as a “minority report.�
This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm and is filed under CDT, Consumer Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Fascinating.
What, specifically, do you see as the main privacy concerns with this technology?
I don’t see how anyone walking in public could consider their age, gender, and race to be private. Every person you pass on the street can easily ascertain this information.
Regarding storage of images, how would your expectation of privacy be any different than walking into a store and being recorded by surveillance cameras?
Excellent job keeping your eye on future privacy issues…
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hello and thanks for the comment.
I’m sorry it took a while to reply, but I was working on something else.
I want to be clear at the outset that we are primarily discussing the future direction of this technology, rather than the relatively limited uses to which it is put today.
As with any data-capturing system, privacy issues with digital signage will depend largely on what type of information is collected and how it is used.
Demographics in aggregate are, of course, of far lesser concern than individual identification.
Depending on the system, individual identification can be tied to location, shopping history, and possibly payment information.
Any time such data is captured, issues arise as to access, use, and security.
How secure is information within the system?
Which employees and what other systems have access to the data, and for how long?
Will the data be sold to business affiliates and used to bombard a consumer with unwanted advertising?
Can consumers opt-out of digital signage marketing?
Could the data be obtained by subpoena or warrant?
As these questions are answered, more will arise.
As digital signage represents a further proliferation of cameras and identification points, there is the danger of mission creep.
That is, the data may end up being used for purposes other than those for which it was originally captured.
For example, digital signage vendors may use the data for audience measurement and targeting, but there are significant law enforcement applications as well.
In fact, law enforcement agencies are already using digital signage to share pictures of wanted and missing persons, as well as to disseminate emergency information.
Some industry white papers envision a back door, like a clipper chip, into digital signage systems for government to broadcast public safety content during disasters.
If governments have access to digital signage systems, might they also someday gain access to the captured data?
When considering such scenarios, it’s important not to think only of the United States government, but also of regimes in other countries where there is little question as to whether digital signage could be used as an additional government surveillance tool.
Keep in mind also that if digital signage systems are triggered by RFID, essentially becoming readers, then many of the privacy issues attendant to RFID apply to digital signage as well.
As for your reference to people possessing no expectation of privacy in public, you are generally correct from a legal standpoint.
Courts often tend to analyze identification technologies in public as though the device were a person viewing the individual.
Thus, the logic goes, there is little difference between a sophisticated camera and a person viewing another individual walking down the street.
But just because this perspective is backed by legal authority doesn’t mean it is without security problems or is socially desirable.
Or even sensible.
I’ve always thought some courts’ reasoning in this matter to be disingenuous.
When courts say there is no expectation of privacy in a public street, what they really mean is that public streets are fair game.
People actually do have expectations of privacy in public streets.
This is why people are consistently surprised by and why controversy flares over the proliferation of surveillance cameras and tracking techniques.
Moreover, there are obviously significant differences between observation by cameras and other humans.
For example, humans alone cannot, without enormous effort, identify the many individuals that walk down a given street, record their demographics and shopping habits, store that information into a database, deliver a targeted marketing message to a nearby screen, then retain and share that information indefinitely.
It’s just not the same thing.
As to your final question regarding the difference between digital signage and surveillance cameras in a private store, there are some significant distinctions.
For one, surveillance cameras have traditionally been used for security, not marketing.
Society is more willing to give up privacy for the former than for the latter.
Surveillance cameras, unlike digital signage displays, are not actively trying to persuade passerby to look at them.
Importantly, most surveillance cameras do not use identification technology, like RFID or facial recognition, nor do most surveillance cameras store consumers’ data and share it.
Of course, most digital signage units do not currently store or share individual consumer data either.
But some do, as do some surveillance cameras, and it is not unlikely that more will do so over time.
Again, this is mostly a future privacy issue, as opposed to a contemporary one.
However, looking ahead must be part of any privacy analysis, because it is a given that technology will proliferate, growing both more sophisticated and more cost effective.
Privacy solutions are always more effective when integrated into nascent systems, because privacy lost is nearly impossible to regain.
Thanks again for your comment.
Sincerely,
Harley Lorenz Geiger
CDT
February 4th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Hello.
I recently wrote an updated blog post on digital signage, “Ads With Eyes.”
In it, I call on digital signage firms and trade associations to adopt and publish privacy policies that address consumer tracking.
The new post can be found here: http://blog.cdt.org/2009/02/02/ads-with-eyes.
Thank you.
Harley Lorenz Geiger
CDT
May 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Good post!!!!!!!!!!
September 10th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
[...] (What is digital signage? Please see my earlier post, Digital Wallpaper.) [...]
September 11th, 2009 at 9:44 am
[...] (What is digital signage? Please see my earlier post, Digital Wallpaper.) [...]