Walmart Says It Can Collect Your Location, Browsing History and Biometric Data. Its Digital Prices Raise Questions

Walmart updated its privacy notice on August 20, and some of the information it says it may collect is raising eyebrows. The list includes browsing and search activity, device location, and several types of biometric information, including voice prints, face geometry, iris or retina imagery, and fingerprints.

At around the same time, Walmart has been rolling out digital shelf labels that allow stores to change prices electronically instead of replacing paper tags. A viral Facebook post connected those two developments, suggesting the technology could eventually allow retailers to show different prices to different shoppers standing in the same store.

There is no evidence Walmart is currently doing that, and Walmart has said its digital shelf labels show the same price to customers in a given store, regardless of who is shopping. Still, the combination of increasingly detailed customer data and technology that makes changing prices easier has some shoppers asking what retail pricing could look like in the future.

Walmart’s Privacy Policy Are Beyond What You Buy

Walmart’s updated privacy notice covers much more than a customer’s purchase history. Depending on how someone uses Walmart’s websites, apps and other services, the company says it may collect browsing and search activity, device identifiers, demographic information, geolocation data and information about purchases.

The company can also use that information to make inferences about a customer. The notice says Walmart may recognize the location of a mobile device in stores where it offers free Wi-Fi or through Bluetooth technology, adding another layer to the information it can potentially gather during a shopping trip.

Then there is the biometric information, which covers several categories that may sound particularly invasive to shoppers. Walmart lists voice prints, iris or retina imagery, face geometry, and palm prints or fingerprints among the information it may collect.

That does not mean Walmart is scanning the face or fingerprints of every person who walks into one of its stores. The notice describes information the company may collect in certain circumstances, depending on the services a customer uses and other factors.

The same applies to Walmart’s voice assistant. When a customer enables the feature and gives the required permission, Walmart says the app can access the microphone while it is open and listen for the wake phrase “Hey, Walmart.”

The company says it does not retain information from before the wake phrase is recognized. That distinction is important because the privacy notice describes potential data collection across a wide range of Walmart services, rather than saying every customer is subject to every type of collection.

The viral post takes those privacy disclosures and connects them to Walmart’s digital shelf labels. Its hypothetical scenario has one shopper seeing a higher price for eggs while another shopper nearby sees a lower one.

There is currently no evidence Walmart is doing this. There is also an important difference between personalized promotions and individualized pricing, since a retailer can give a customer a coupon based on their shopping history without charging that person a different base price for the same product.

What Those Digital Price Tags Actually Do

Walmart has been expanding digital shelf labels across its U.S. stores. In March, the retailer said about 2,300 stores had the technology and that it expected to roll it out across the chain within the following year.

The labels eliminate the need for employees to replace paper tags every time a price changes. Walmart says they can save associates time, improve pricing accuracy and make it easier to manage inventory and online orders.

That has larger questions about whether retailers could eventually use the technology for more frequent or personalized price changes, even though Walmart says that is not how its system works.

According to Walmart, digital shelf labels show the same price to customers in a given store, regardless of demand, time of day or who happens to be shopping. Walmart has also said the labels themselves do not interact with customers or collect information about them.

According to Walmart, digital shelf labels show the same price to customers in a given store, regardless of demand, time of day or who happens to be shopping. Walmart has also said the labels themselves do not interact with customers or collect information about them.

Based on what Walmart has publicly said, those systems are not being used together to give individual shoppers different prices. Customers who want to review their privacy options can also use Walmart’s “Your Privacy Choices” tools.

Walmart has not announced a system that secretly charges different shoppers different prices for the same product. But the questions behind the viral post are worth watching as retailers collect more information about their customers and automate more of the shopping experience.

For shoppers, that means paying attention to what companies say they collect, how they say they use it and what choices consumers have over their information. The digital price tag may be new, but the bigger question is becoming more common. How much should a retailer know about you to sell you something?

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