I found it in a blog.

I keep my eyes open for all sorts of things, but I'm quite sure that I wouldn't have found this by myself. That being the case, I guess that I should put in a good word here about blogs, which I wasn't overly enthusiastic about a couple of columns ago. It was a small reference in the Blog of The Technology Review. There, Simson Garfinkel (whom I've enjoyed reading well before blogging and hope to continue to do so well after) reported the item in two brief paragraphs:

The British Newspaper The Guardian reports that various Members of Parliament are looking into the idea of using supermarket loyalty card data to monitor the eating habits of British citizens.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, this is one of those “nightmare scenarios“ that privacy activists were talking about back in the 1980s that everybody else poo-pooed.

Garfinkel doesn't get up in arms about this, but he certainly doesn't find it insignificant either. He's simply aware that the technology to keep tracks on us is there, and wants us to know how it can be used.

Go to: Big Brother's supermarket?, or
Go to: I can't possibly be comprehensive here, or
Go to: They've got a little list.