So there I was in the White Company store making an aspirational purchase of a Flowers Bath and Body set (very nice: transcendant notes of geranium and neroli) when I realised that the cashier was asking me a question. “Your postcode?” she repeated, sweetly, finger hovering over keyboard. “Oh, L19 0PE,” I answered, obediently and without hesitation. “And the house number?” she trilled.
Now hold on a cotton-picking minute. I’m buying some chuffing twelve quid shower gel and they need to know the exact location of my shower cubicle? The answer is that of course they don’t - but they really, really want to. Why? Oh, just so that retailers can map out your entire buying history on a huge, scary database then torture you with junk mail until the day you die.
But the thing is that every day we help them, meekly surrendering our confidential details like speak-your- weight machines whenever we buy a bog roll. It’s a miracle that any of us can raise outrage at the bugging of an MP when we collude gormlessly in our own surveillance at every turn.
I blithely contributed to my friend’s online honeymoon fund at Trailfinders and, now in receipt of my address, bank details and a vague idea of my spending power, Trailfinders has pursued me ever since like a randy bull. Buying a £40 printer at Curry’s? Prepare to be phone- stalked for five years about extended warranties because, you plonker, you gave the cashier your number didn’t you? Your call may be monitored for “training purposes” - yeah, right. They’re recording everyone’s voices for some vast MI5 databank. Your Oyster cards, your credit cards, even your underpants may be spying on you. Asda, M&S, Tesco - all have the technology now to place tiny smart tags in everyday objects that can be tracked by scanners and are designed to remain active through a product’s life.
But resisting this data-creep is probably futile by now. A system exists that gives employers “20:20 vision” of their workers’ behaviour throughout the day, logging every keystroke and flagging up “suspicious” activity such as a longer than average toilet break. I fear that any surveillance of me in the office would highlight an overattachment to the vending machine - crisps at 11am and a Twix around 3pm. I like Smokey Bacon but I’m not so keen on Worcester Sauce - there, that info is on me.
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I told her my house number, by the way. Didn’t want to make a scene. On the consumeractiongroup website a man tells what happened at a DIY store when he declined to give his postcode. The cashier called the supervisor and they refused to serve him. This is serious: no man can do without a toilet flange. Another reader confides his modus operandi - always giving the postcode SW1A 2AA, house number 10. Though, of course, as a responsible newspaper we do not condone directing all your junk mail to the Prime Minister.