BSA/310 Business Systems
July 11, 2011
Kudler Fine Foods’ is creating a frequent shopper program for their company. Their main objective is to create a program in which they can track their customer’s purchases
Implementation and the use of this type of technology has a large impact on the privacy of the people that participate in these programs. The increased use of frequent shopper cards by retail stores has elevated the need for a watchfulness of these programs.
To gather information from shoppers a computer chip is buried in the card that is issued to the shopper that records every item that the shopper purchases. Additionally various other personal information is also gathered and stored. The information gathered by the stores allows the store’s marketing companies to target specific shoppers according to their buying habits and other information gathered. Issues do not stem from the gathering of this information but the use of it. Consumers are never really sure how their information is being used or to whom its being sold. It is also a concern of the validity of the information. Is this information accurate? “In order to counter these problems relating to privacy and the merging of databases the American Congress passed the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act in the 1980s” (Benjamin, 1991, p. 11).
Legal and Security Issues
Concerns have increased surrounding the privacy of consumers when collecting and distributing data collected by frequent buyer programs. Kudler Foods must consider all underlying legal issues in regard to using the collected information. There must be an equal consideration of protection for Kudler and the public’s interest. Now that food retailers are using actual customer data to identify their loyal customers, track what is being purchased and use that data to create marketing programs that target this demographic, the use of this data must be