Do You Want Your Clothing Tracking You?
Tommy Hilfiger is considering putting tracking chips in your clothing. Tracking where and when you wear their clothes so that they can reward you for brand loyalty
It sounds like a clever and fun way to for your company to connect with your target consumer and maybe even turn on some social media rewards. Like, let us track and you can also post on our FB page and Instagram showing us where you are when you wear our brand.
But – if you look at the responses to the articles; PEOPLE ARE VERY CONCERNED
This is another intrusion on our privacy: where we go, what we do and now what we wear.
The huge concern of course is what will they do with this data once they have it?
Will they use it in-house and then inundate us with, things like: the weather forecast is calling for rain in your home town, here are some raincoats; it looks like you enjoy going to the mountains, next time here are some great hiking shoes that you may want to try. This could be kind of cool but most likely it will be annoying.
The next concern is with whom they will “share/sell” this data?
We already know that law enforcement is purchasing data from folks like phone companies, and the ancestor DNA discovery folks to solve crimes. Law enforcement can already purchase data from the telecommunications companies and use it to discover who was in a certain area during a crime, then find their criminals.
Then of course you have the data that is sold to other vendors. What if they share that you are on vacation at a certain hot tourist spot and suddenly you are inundated with texts emails, fb ads inviting you to restaurants, shops, other activities. Do you want other vendors to know that you are close by? Do you want these ads showing up in all your online or on-air accounts?
What if they share that you are drinking a bit on your vacation and they share this with AA or another alcohol/drug counseling center. Then this Center shares the data with their insurance providers and suddenly our healthcare bill goes up or we are denied coverage.
The more they know about us the more we lose our autonomy in all things.
Could someone add you to their clothing tracking application like an ex-Spouse, ex-Date and then track you where every you go? They gift you a nice shirt. They log in the shirt on their application and suddenly they can see where you are, and you don’t even know it. Will Tommy Hilfiger make sure that someone else can’t TAG you?
SO is this fun, annoying or plainly an intrusion on our privacy?
The consumer will decide. If they really love the shirt they may be able to cut out the tracking device. Or maybe Tommy Hilfiger’s brand will suffer.
Watch Jeff Garbus talk about this on FOX 13 NEWS in Tampa on Saturday August 4th at 7 am.
