Mal Fletcher comments on the use of CCTV cameras and Tesco's announcement that they will soon be using face detection software

Mal Fletcher

'Friends don't spy,' wrote Stephen King. 'True friendship is about privacy, too.'

In future, it seems, British companies and local authorities will need to work much harder at making friends.

The supermarket giant Tesco announced last weekend that it will soon use CCTV cameras, with face detection software, to track demographics among its customers.

In the beginning, the cameras will be placed at each of its petrol station checkouts. They will then, presumably, be rolled out across its 3,000 stores in the UK alone.

The scheme involves software called OptimEyes, developed by Amscreen, another British company which says its tools will help bring the Tesco into 'a new age of customer insight, measurability, campaign management and optimisation.'

The OptimEyes website is quick to stress that 'face detection' does not mean 'face recognition'. The technology, it adds, is not used to store personal information about customers or to identify them in any way. It is used only to allow a company to track who is using its services at any given time, in any given place.

Amscreen's ultimate goal is to provide its clients with demographic data.

This data is the new, global currency which allows companies to sharpen their pitch of products to customers, both at the point of sale and in their wider marketing campaigns.

Geofencing is another manifestation of the same phenomenon. It involves companies pitching products to us based on our present location at any given time of day.

It's all based upon algorithms that map our buying habits, and smartphones that signal our whereabouts.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with companies developing more effective ways to market products. Advertising is a core component of free market capitalism.

What's more, the cameras used by Tesco will look nothing like the bulky CCTV units we're used to seeing in public areas.

These cameras are so small that they fit neatly into the frames that surround plasma screens - the same screens that carry glossy advertising images.

The basic technology is the same, though - with one added extra. It provides Tesco with the ability to screen faces, ascertaining things like gender, age demographic and even customer emotions, which help to shape buying habits.