Here’s a bit of news that should delight mall owners and absolutely terrify people with tin hats on their heads – it seems that two malls in Virginia and California are using shopper’s phones to track them as they move through their mall. The technology, called Footpath Technolog,y aims to help mall operators precisely identify the foot traffic of people as they shop, to allow them to precisely pinpoint where to put shops, amenities and other mall niceties. Armed with the information, mall owners can now now precisely tell where the most amount of foot traffic is and deploy stores accordingly. And while the technology can pinpoint a shopper within a few meters, Footpath’s company, Path Intelligence, says that the information taken from shopper’s cellphones are completely anonymous, with no personal data being taken. The malls also tell their customers that they are being tracked in advance via multiple signs scattered throughout the mall, with instructions to turn off their phone if they want to opt out.
Source: Physorg