Predictive Analytics

Companies Recording Personal Information



Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? Today retail companies are trying their best to figure out shopping patterns and habits customers have. This in itself is not an issue, however it is the way companies are doing this is reason it creates controversy.

Predictive analytics is a computer process that uses a variety of methods. It uses modeling, machine learning, data mining, and game theory in order to figure out certain facts, past and present, about someone. Companies use this information for advertising benefits. Target, for example, uses a guest code linked to each person by using his or her credit card, email, mail, or other contact information. It has become so advance that companies can figure out someone's personal information, which many people are not fond of. Companies can figure out where you live, where you lived previously, your demographics, how much money you make, where you went to college, if you've ever been bankrupt, if you have been divorced, etc. This is a lot of personal information that one may not want to be shared.

The problem with the predictive analytic process is that the companies do not inform their customers that their data is being recorded. Therefore, customers have not given the companies consent to do this. Some retailers slightly address this problem with loyalty cards that a customer must sign. In fine print on the card it states that the company may record a customers information for many purposes. Another problem with this process is that the government has not set up a limit for the usage of information that a company records from its customers. Many retailers give their customer information to other companies in order to give them advertising benefits.

Many people are unaware of the predictive analytic process that companies use today because they are not told and have not given consent. This creates a big privacy issue that the government has not fully addressed. This subject and issue has not been publicly announced until two weeks ago in an issue of The New York Times. Although companies are trying to get everything they can out of their customers they need to be aware and sure of the legal issues that can follow.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.csrandthelaw.com/2012/02/articles/privacy/predictive-analytics-informed-consent-and-privacy-the-case-of-target/