Time for a reality check on supermarket loyalty cards before the surveillance society gets out of hand - Jayne Dowle

I thought those Morrisons security robots were a step too far, but now we learn that rival supermarket Tesco could use artificial intelligence to admonish shoppers when they’re buying a sliced white loaf.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy has revealed that he expects to use artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor how we’re shopping and “nudge” us into making healthier choices. This, it’s reported, would be achieved by hooking up AI with Tesco Clubcards, presumably through smartphones.

As Murphy puts it: “I can see it nudging you, saying: ‘look, I’ve noticed over time that in your shopping basket your sodium salt content is 250pc of your daily recommended allowance. I would recommend you substitute this, this and this for lower sodium products to improve your heart health’.”

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I wondered, as I read this, what such an AI ‘critical friend’ might say should an errant shopper dare to pick up a bottle of wine? Would alarms sound, lights flash, and the culprit be frozen to the spot in some kind of virtual web? Sorry if this sounds far-fetched, but as the boss of Britain’s biggest supermarket seems quite happy to talk about technology teaching us how to fill our trollies, anything is possible really.

A general view of a Tesco Express. PIC: PAA general view of a Tesco Express. PIC: PA
A general view of a Tesco Express. PIC: PA

Are we really so hopeless that we can’t be left to make our own choices, and accept the consequences if we don’t? And isn’t ‘in real life’ supermarket shopping already stressful enough, without some disembodied voice ordering us about? I’d much prefer the bosses to focus on replenishing shelves and reasonable prices.

I treat supermarket shopping as a commando raid; I don’t have the bandwidth (or patience) to absorb that level of detail delivered in a ticking-off tone when all I’m trying to do is get in and out as quickly as possible, even though the electric security gates probably won’t work.

I admit. I don’t possess a Tesco Clubcard. I’ve been heavily influenced by my teenage daughter who put forward an impassioned argument resting on the basis of invasion of privacy and the fact that supermarkets and other retailers want to harvest our data for their own ends. As a fair-minded individual, she also took great umbrage to the fact that on many items, there’s one price (lower) for Clubcard members and another (higher) for everyone else.

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And indeed, last December, an investigation by the Sunday Times newspaper found that Tesco and Sainsbury’s, Britain’s two biggest supermarkets, are making an estimated £300m a year from selling information about their customers’ shopping habits and choices to consumer giants and TV companies.

The companies, such as Channel 4, Pepsico and Heineken, use the data obtained through a Tesco’s Clubcard or Sainsbury’s Nectar card to understand consumer behaviour and target people with advertisements linked to products that they are likely to buy.

It’s one of those disturbing aspects of modern life that I know about, but don’t like to think about too much. Like ads for fancy holidays popping up on my Facebook feed when I’m chatting with my friends about my fantasy trips, it makes me want to run for the hills, go off grid and live out my days in a yurt.

I am not entirely blind to the positive health benefits of making nutritious food choices. Being guided towards making them by a non-human will be music to the ears of health campaigners who regularly remind us that unhealthy eating is driving a costly obesity crisis that is impacting the NHS. Only last week, the Institute for Public Policy Research called for extra taxes on pernicious foods such as biscuits and chocolates to discourage people from buying them.

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Murphy insists that his own intervention is “very simple stuff” which could “really improve people’s daily lives”.

Presumably that’s also what NatWest thought before it had to deal with a customer backlash when it started telling customers to stop eating meat and to drive electric cars, having combed through their accounts to calculate their carbon footprint. The bank at the time argued this was an opt-in feature.

Before this surveillance society gets out of hand, it really is time for a reality check. As Jake Hurfurt, head of research and investigations at civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch, says: “It is astounding that Tesco’s CEO wants to use this data to tell us how to live our lives. Tesco has no right to make judgements about what’s in our baskets or nudge us on what we should and should not be buying.”

If the food industry really wants to do its bit to improve the nation’s health, it needs to accept that not everyone has a nice shiny loyalty card attached to a beeping smartphone. Or wants one.

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