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Smile, You Are Being Videotaped!
By William McKnight on August 11, 2010View Full Bio →
I was driving around my neighborhood yesterday and noticed these signs posted everywhere. I guess some homeowner’s associations do not mind a little sarcasm on the lawns for the sake of safety. It took me a while to spot some of the cameras and I’m sure I did not locate them all. For various reasons, not all related to safety, we have become the generation that is being videotaped. My children will grow up without realizing stores, busy street corners and even neighborhoods never had cameras trained to capture our every move.
I am involved with a company that takes some of these videos and makes some business intelligence out of it. In support of the fact that most people behind the wheel of a car would rather be moving – and at the maximum speed allowed – as opposed to sitting in traffic, such film will influence street light algorithms, public service availability and much more.
But exactly who is behind the cars and faces in all of these films? What are they like? What is happening around them? These are the marketer’s ultimate fantasy trifecta. And it’s not as far off as you might think. Let’s data model this future.
Who is it?
There are 2 basic ways to recognize people. One is by sight, as in the aforementioned video. Remember the day when photography technology was considered so expensive and advanced that it was only used for highly selective purposes? Remember when phones were tethered? One day facial recognition software will be as ubiquitous as all of these hallmarks of our life. But will this public, private or shared institution have a database of our faces? It may already.
Facebook provides a database of over 50 million faces. Even the most private FBers allow their profile picture to be made public. Hook up an API to Facebook and you have a good start on the database. If driver’s license, passport, school pictures and other public service photos are made accessible, it will be an oddity to not be able to be recognized by facial recognition.
Similar to the national do-not-call list, there may need to be a “do-not-recognize” list one day. Although invasive phone calls are still most unwelcome, people are routinely giving companies the ability to recognize them. With cookies enabled, Amazon, YouTube, EBay and other sites welcome me back with a targeted message. We mostly have shown appreciation for targeted messages that save us time with interesting offers. Eventually, by popular demand, perhaps attached to a public safety measure, opt out will opt itself out. That is not a modeling issue however.
The other way to recognize a person is by scan. If the person is wearing an RFID chip of most kinds and they pass one of the ever-growing number of RFID readers also appearing on our landscapes, the chip/reader/person can be triangulated. Supported by master data in the database about the person, which can be a shared master with the video scanning, the possibilities deepen substantially.
RFID is a tagging technology that uses electronic transmitters, or backscatters, containing (usually) a standard code representing the item that it is attached to - whether that is a shirt, an automobile, a cow, a bird, a computer, a pallet of goods, a credit card or a passport. The tags are read by readers, which are usually in a fixed location.
Hence, the combination of the item, the location, the time of the read, and sometimes other factors such as temperature, provides the meaningful information a company seeks from the use of RFID. The clear advantage is that, through well-placed readers and inference, the company knows close to or exactly where the person isat any point in time.
Also global positioning is ubiquitous and considered a necessary accompaniment by the directionally-challenged, and those who want to know what the closest amenities are. I am amazed at how many of my iPhone 4 applications ask if it’s ok to share my location with them.
What are they like?
Recognition is one thing, but WHO is the person beyond their name? Name is for recognition, but more interesting are demographics, psychographics, and econometrics. All of these and more are modeled and compiled today by third-party data syndicators like InfoUSA.
The syndicated vendor community has been around a while, but has mostly been modeled into organizations into a very specific need, such as for a marketing list for a specific promotion. That is changing as organizations are making the move to the leveragable data store that is master data management (MDM).
Syndicators get their information from many sources including public records and through copious collection of the breadcrumbs individuals leave behind in society, such as sweepstakes, subscriptions, services and the internet. So it’s not a perfect science and the data is not 100%, but it’s going to be close enough to use.
Also individual companies have compiled many years of transaction history on customers in data warehouses. These are powerful tools in determining receptivity to a next-best-offer. Summaries of data warehouse information can be continually made available to real-time promotion engines.
What is happening around them?
We’ve had complete mastery of the landscape of the planet for quite some time. We know the layout of the planet and our cities, suburbs and outskirts very well. We know where buildings and crosswalks are. So what is going on around these static items?
RFID scanning will enable an understanding of the more dynamic artifacts since many tags will be placed on items that move and are not attached to a single person or to that person permanently. Our laptops and cell phones, for example, are sometimes with and sometimes without us. We’re starting to know where everything dynamic is as well.
Environmental sensors, like thermometers, continually feed the weather dimension, which is also location-centric. News is national and location-centric and when combined with the news that is most appealing to the person, creates another powerful indirect means to market.
So, let’s see marketers, we’re modeling for you…
- Who it is
- Their demographics, psychographics, econometrics and more
- Where they are… NOW
- What is around them from a static perspective (landscape)
- What is around them from a dynamic perspective
- Environmental factors at that location
- Relevant news of the moment
Do you think you can do something with this? I thought so.
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About the Author
William functions as Strategist, Lead Enterprise Information Architect, and Program Manager for complex, high-volume full life-cycle implementations worldwide utilizing the disciplines of data warehousing, master data management, business intelligence, data quality and operational business intelligence.
Sounds geeky, but I’m pissed about this. Whatever happened to privacy? Can’t you smart folk express yourself some other way? I’m glad I’m done with Facebook.
August 13, 2010
Companies will continually fumble around with this data and there may be backlash. You’re going to convenience me by advertising to me? Usually not - and they’re not using the data they’ve already got very well imo. People will find a way to opt out, possibly through hostilities.
August 16, 2010
There are 2 applications here. One is benign, and probably money losing for a while - the marketing application. The other is the governmental use which may be used to channel us to their favorite big brands but also may be used legitimately for homeland security or for who knows what else. It also has battlefield and enemy implications. Planting RFID tags and sensing devices on the enemy could become more devastating than planting land mines.
August 18, 2010
I’m already aware of a lot of this, from various sources. I’ve seen live domonstrations by technical geniuses who can tell me within seconds from an IP address, where you live, where you work, what you bought recently, and what you might be interested in buying. I also, like a lot of Americans, get some of my information from TV. If you’ve ever watched Leverage, which I love, the writers reference this kind of technology a lot. Guys like John Rogers do their homework, so the show only has a bit of hollywood exaggeration. In a lot of cases, they actually understate this sort of thing because the writers don’t think the general public will believe the real levels to which privacy has become a joke in the US.
I know the massive amounts of information are there. I have a good idea of some of the applications of it, marketing, security, and ironically, both crime and crime-fighting. But I can’t help but think like a data integrator. You’re talking about massive amounts of data, terabytes, petabytes of data flowing in from hundreds of disparate sources with very little structure. If you want to use that data to plan your next marketing campaign, to spot fraud, to catch terrorists, or to track down your lost child, you’ve got to crunch through and analyze it all.
The scary technology of the future is going to require data crunching capability from things like Hadoop, and DataRush and MMP processing. Funny timing on this post, since we just published: Pervasive DataRush Reaches Two Terabytes-per-Hour Processing Speed on MalStone B Benchmark http://bit.ly/amZsXU We’re proud of that, but I still find it somewhat disturbing to know my company is helping to empower big brother to watch us.
Paige
August 18, 2010
Early in our evolution as a more digitally connected community, people denounced and protested videotaping and recording more feverously than they do now. I have noticed as the years have passed, these protests have quieted and yet the advances in technology have made for an even more invasive form of data collection with the use of data warehouses, customer loyalty cards, and multiple terabyte point-of-sale data collection systems.
Why less protest? I think it’s partially related to being more informed on the advantages of this technology. Some of it is also related to the pocketbook and seeing that extra discount from the loyalty card reflected on the sales slip. Mostly, I believe it is the personal belief that their data is secure. We hear about identity theft, but the reality is that a great majority of us have been untouched by it.
This summer during my work commute across the expressways in my city, the state has been erecting a network of traffic sensors and digital message panels. When complete it will inform drivers of bottlenecks, accidents, travel times and so forth. I welcome that for sure. As a data professional, I think of what a valuable piece of information this could provide private enterprises and the government. Traffic patterns and volumes digitally collected 24x7 would benefit traffic planning. Insurance companies and the retail industry would love to see these statistics. This new fangled technology sure does beat the college kid sitting at an intersection clicking away the traffic count!
August 18, 2010
John, it’s hard to stop the wheels of progress. History has shown that if it can be done, it will. I’m with Paige’s post on the disturbance of it all however.
Preston and Robert, I generally agree that companies have lacked full applicaiton of the data they collect, but it’s changing. I worked with one grocer who collected frequent shopper transactions for 2 years before really doing anything with the data. But then, it had the data when they were ready.
I also agree that there are public and private interests in tracking technologies.
August 18, 2010
Paige, you have made me aware that I am guilty of understating in my very post. By not wanting to sound unbelievable, I made it more accessible. Privacy in the US is a joke. What’s worse is the quality of the information being used. Some uses understand that it’s not 100% perfect, others make scary (to the business and to the individuals involved) decisions as if the data is 100%.
Incidentally, when I consult in Canada and Europe, it is a different story. Our politicians are too distracted to understand the loss of privacy and when they do, it will be too late. The cat’s already out of the bag.
I agree that Hadoop, and DataRush and MMP, combined with complex event processing, have potential for processing the volume of transactons and that modern DBMS approaches do not. I can’t see the traditional approach of “store, then analyze” being effective and data modeling will need to change to embrace this new form of data store.
August 18, 2010
Tom, thanks for coming in on this. Underlying social factors of acceptance are clearly paving the way for the technology. If I think about how long the technology has been available, yes, there’s a push now, but it has been around a while.
And we might as well deal with the reality of the situation and learn how to best work with tracking becuase it is a reality. You mention one very important benefit. Keeping traffic moving is beneficial to just about everyone involved.
I used to own one of those little red clickers. I think I counted baseball pitches with it.
August 19, 2010
“I agree that Hadoop, and DataRush and MMP, combined with complex event processing, have potential for processing the volume of transactons and that modern DBMS approaches do not. I can’t see the traditional approach of “store, then analyze” being effective and data modeling will need to change to embrace this new form of data store.”
I suspect that the analytics of the future will be done on data as it flows in. By the time the data is stored, most of the information folks want from it will already have been gleaned.
Piage
August 13, 2010