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To: sinkspur
MOO

UK's Tesco found using `spy chips'

THE GUARDIAN Sunday, Jul 20, 2003,Page 11 The UK supermarket chain Tesco has admitted testing controversial technology that tracks customers buying certain products through its stores. Anyone picking up Gillette Mach3 razor blades at its store in Cambridge, in the east of England will have his or her picture taken.

The London-based Guardian newspaper, alerted by Katherine Albrecht, director of US-based Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy and Invasion and Numbering, to the use of the smart electronic tags, has found that tags in the razor blades trigger a CCTV camera when a packet is removed from the shelf.

A second camera takes a picture at the checkout and security staff then compare the two images, raising the possibility that they could be used to prevent theft.
5 posted on 07/31/2003 10:47:23 PM PDT by Pro-Bush (Circumstances rule destiny)
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To: Pro-Bush
Katherine Albrecht is a first-class lunatic. Totally unbelieveable.

What happens if I pick up a Mach 3, then put it on another shelf in the store? Am I targeted as a thief?

Oh, and what genuises are going to compare these thousands of pictures? The minimum-wage mensas we have working security today?

Don't be a sap.

9 posted on 07/31/2003 10:57:34 PM PDT by sinkspur ("Boy, watch that knife!'" Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton in "The Searchers")
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