See the billboard? He sees you too

The American company Clear Channel Outdoor Americas owns tens of thousands of billboards across the country. Many of them have already been converted into tracking monitors, which collect information about all passersby .

This is important information for advertisers: they find out the size of the audience for each ad, and also get demographic data on them: age and gender. In this way, you can plan more effective campaigns by placing ads in the best places with the right target audience. Naturally, the names of people are not transmitted to the advertiser: the information is anonymous, so everything is legal.

How is this technically implemented? No face recognition is needed, everything is much simpler. Yesterday, Clear Channel Outdoor Americas announced an agreement with leading US cellular operators, including AT & T, which transmit geolocation information about their subscribers. This is also legal, because it is provided for in the standard service contract between the subscriber and the telecom operator.

It is difficult for a subscriber to avoid surveillance, because his coordinates are not calculated by GPS, but by triangulating the distance to cell phone towers. The operator makes the base of all those who appeared at certain coordinates in the area of ​​the billboard - and sells it to Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, indicating the time of appearance of the person, his sex, age, etc. Information on the number and demographic composition of the audience is very valuable not only for advertisers, but also for owners of shops, restaurants and other establishments.
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In fact, mobile operators have long been selling such information, and not only they. For example, mobile application developers do this (although they only get GPS coordinates).

AT & T has a division of AT & T Data Patterns to collect and analyze geolocation information about subscribers. Specialized companies do the same, including PlaceIQ and Placed, which either buy information from mobile application developers or pay users themselves for the right to track their location (this is a more honest approach).

Of course, this practice causes complaints to privacy advocates: “People have no idea that they are being tracked,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “This is incredibly disgusting and is another new way to invade personal life.”

Since yesterday, Clear Channel Outdoor Americas has been providing Radar to advertisers in 11 major US cities, including Los Angeles and New York.