Recycling bin mobile snooping scheme canned
Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 13:47:33
An unusual project operating in London over the past year has been put to bed for good by the authorities, after complaints from those concerned about privacy, according to TechWeek.
Recycling company, Renew, had installed a system called ORB into 100 bins dotted about the eastern part of the capital during the Olympics last summer and has been operating them ever since.
ORB is designed to offer targeted advertising by tapping into the Wi-Fi connectivity of passing pedestrians and gauging their habits from the info it gleans, so that relevant marketing content can be displayed on screens built into the bins.
Renew claims that such activities do not breach the privacy of individuals, but of course there have been claims to the contrary and now the trial of this scheme has been brought to a close.
A Renew spokesperson said that while the recycling bins were able to find out certain details about people with smartphones who got within range, it was all gathered and stored anonymously.
This is being described as similar to the way a website can access information about the people that visit it, although of course those walking past a recycling bin can hardly be claimed to have 'visited' it in the same way.
New regulations tightened up the laws on how websites gather data on people, requiring them to point out when cookies are being used to keep track of activities.
This is something that obviously came into play when the case of these recycling bins was considered and plenty of people would have been uncomfortable with the idea that a streetside receptacle could sniff out information from their smartphones, even if it was for the relatively innocuous purpose of providing targeted advertising to the millions of residents in London.
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