Tesco is quietly building a profile of you, along with every individual in the country - a map of personality, travel habits, shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are. A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called Crucible, that is collating detailed information on every household in the UK, whether they choose to shop at the retailer or not.
The company refuses to reveal the information it holds, yet Tesco is selling access to this database to other big consumer groups, such as Sky, Orange and Gillette. "It contains details of every consumer in the UK at their home address across a range of demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics," says the marketing blurb of dunnhumby, the Tesco subsidiary in question. It has "added intelligent profiling and targeting" to its data through a software system called Zodiac. This profiling can rank your enthusiasm for promotions, your brand loyalty, whether you are a "creature of habit" and when you prefer to shop. As the blurb puts it: "The list is endless if you know what you are looking for."
This publicity material was, until recently, available on the website of dunnhumby, but now appears less forthcoming. Attempts by a number of Guardian reporters to retrieve their own personal information under the Data Protection Act led to a four month battle; the request was ultimately denied so the Guardian has appealed to the Information Commissioner. Tesco has provided some personal data held by Clubcard, the loyalty scheme that monitors members' shopping and which has been credited with fuelling the supermarket group's astronomical growth in the past decade.
But as far as Crucible is concerned, the company admits it has "put great effort into designing our services" so information is classed in a way that circumvents disclosure provisions in the Data Protection Act. Clues about the content of dunnhumby's database have appeared in the company's marketing literature. Crucible, it says, is a "massive pool" of consumer data. "In the perfect world, we would know everything we need to know about consumers. We would have a complete picture: attitudes, behaviour, lifestyle. In reality, we never know as much as we would like." But Crucible, it suggests, has got much further than rival systems by pooling data from several sources and then using the vast Clubcard data pool to profile customers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,12784,1573992,00.htmlThis reminded me of another one of these 'big-brother' software tools - "Mosaic":
A few weeks later, I have coffee with the Labour MP Chris Bryant. He is one of several MPs who are pushing for change in the credit card industry; at Prime Minister's Questions in January, he called on Tony Blair to ban unsolicited offers of credit cards and loans. "We all know they target the people who are just bumping along," he says, "who don't read the small print and don't realise the extortionate interest rates they're paying. We know they use aggressive marketing techniques to persuade those people to take out loans that they often don't understand and simply can't afford."
"Do any credit card companies ever admit to this?" I ask.
"Of course not," says Chris. "But there is this thing called Mosaic." It's a computer programme, he says, that the credit card companies have grown to rely on when determining whom to shower. Apparently, if you type a postcode into Mosaic, it'll tell you if the person living at that house wears Burberry or drinks coke or white wine, or whatever. Then Chris moves his chair slightly closer to mine.
"The Tories have Mosaic," he says. "They're using it to decide who to target with their junk."
"Are they?" I reply, darkly.
What Chris doesn't tell me - and I find out only later - is that Labour has Mosaic, too.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/creditanddebt/creditcards/story/0,1456,1529921,00.html
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