SceneTap, previously known as BarTabbers, was a data analytics, marketing services, and mobile application company launched in 2010. SceneTap started in Chicago, Illinois, and is currently based in Austin, Texas. [1] The tool allows end users to view real-time data on crowd sizes, gender ratios, and the average age of patrons in a given location. [2] In addition, it allows establishments to post live coupons and specials for users to purchase. [3]
SceneTap offers an administrative platform to operators of establishments, allowing operators to view reports and charts on their customers. Data is fed to its mobile application and website allowing users to view data on social venues such as bars, lounges, and coffee shops. The current network is primarily based in Chicago, IL, Bloomington, IN, and Austin, with expansion areas including Boston, Columbus, Ohio, New York, and Miami. [4] The service most recently launched in San Francisco on Friday, May 18, 2012.
The mobile application and website also provide "real-time" specials on food and drink to end users, which are submitted by each establishment. [5]
In late 2013, SceneTap Board of Directors restructured the company for a merger with BarVision, which continues today.
Media pundits and privacy advocates have raised questions around the technologies SceneTap utilizes to collect its information, particularly since it collects demographic information from people without their consent. The company points out its use of facial detection technology, which analyzes facial features to determine gender and approximate age - rather than attempting to collect personalized information or make an identification of that person. [5]
In addition, the company maintains that its data collection is less intrusive to personal privacy than credit card transactions or identification scanners. [6]
A location-based service (LBS) is a general term denoting software services which use geographic data and information to provide services or information to users. LBS can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, entertainment, work, personal life, etc. Commonly used examples of location based services include navigation software, social networking services, location-based advertising, and tracking systems. LBS can also include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location. LBS also includes personalized weather services and even location-based games.
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, or destructive. This experience is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment. In this way, augmented reality alters one's ongoing perception of a real-world environment, whereas virtual reality completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one.
Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point-to-point (P2P), point-to-multipoint (P2MP), or mesh wired or wireless links. Even though almost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for surveillance in areas that require additional security or ongoing monitoring.
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, such as organizations like the NSA, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is also often distinguished from targeted surveillance.
A facial recognition system is a technology capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verification services, and works by pinpointing and measuring facial features from a given image.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance enabled by the emergence of computer technologies.
Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) refers to the methods of automatically identifying objects, collecting data about them, and entering them directly into computer systems, without human involvement. Technologies typically considered as part of AIDC include QR codes, bar codes, radio frequency identification (RFID), biometrics, magnetic stripes, optical character recognition (OCR), smart cards, and voice recognition. AIDC is also commonly referred to as "Automatic Identification", "Auto-ID" and "Automatic Data Capture".
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin.
An Internet Protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera that receives control data and sends image data via an IP network. They are commonly used for surveillance, but, unlike analog closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, they require no local recording device, only a local area network. Most IP cameras are webcams, but the term IP camera or netcam usually applies only to those that can be directly accessed over a network connection.
Reality mining is the collection and analysis of machine-sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior, with the goal of identifying predictable patterns of behavior. In 2008, MIT Technology Review called it one of the "10 technologies most likely to change the way we live."
Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.
Carrier IQ was a privately owned mobile software company founded in 2005 in Sunnyvale, California. It provided diagnostic analysis of smartphones to the wireless industry via the installation of software on the user's phone, typically in a manner that cannot be removed without rooting the phone. The company says that its software is deployed in over 150 million devices worldwide.
A whole new range of techniques has been developed to identify people since the 1960s from the measurement and analysis of parts of their bodies to DNA profiles. Forms of identification are used to ensure that citizens are eligible for rights to benefits and to vote without fear of impersonation while private individuals have used seals and signatures for centuries to lay claim to real and personal estate. Generally, the amount of proof of identity that is required to gain access to something is proportionate to the value of what is being sought. It is estimated that only 4% of online transactions use methods other than simple passwords. Security of systems resources generally follows a three-step process of identification, authentication and authorization. Today, a high level of trust is as critical to eCommerce transactions as it is to traditional face-to-face transactions.
Mass surveillance in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the network of monitoring systems used by the Chinese central government to monitor Chinese citizens. It is primarily conducted through the government, although corporate surveillance in connection with the Chinese government has been reported to occur. China monitors its citizens through Internet surveillance, camera surveillance, and through other digital technologies. It has become increasingly widespread and grown in sophistication under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping's administration.
Smartglasses or smart glasses are eye or head-worn wearable computers that offer useful capabilities to the user. Many smartglasses include displays that add information alongside or to what the wearer sees. Alternatively, smartglasses are sometimes defined as glasses that are able to change their optical properties, such as smart sunglasses that are programmed to change tint by electronic means.
Firebase is a set of backend cloud computing services and application development platforms provided by Google. It hosts databases, services, authentication, and integration for a variety of applications, including Android, iOS, Javascript, Node.js, Java, Unity, PHP, and C++.
The gathering of personally identifiable information (PII) is the practice of collecting public and private personal data that can be used to identify an individual for both legal and illegal applications. PII owners often view PII gathering as a threat and violation of their privacy. Meanwhile, entities such as information technology companies, governments, and organizations use PII for data analysis of consumer shopping behaviors, political preference, and personal interests.
Ride sharing networks face issues of user privacy like other online platforms do. Concerns surrounding the apps include the security of financial details, and privacy of personal details and location. Privacy concerns can also rise during the ride as some drivers choose to use passenger facing cameras for their own security. As the use of ride sharing services become more widespread so do the privacy issues associated with them.
Identity replacement technology is any technology that is used to cover up all or parts of a person's identity, either in real life or virtually. This can include face masks, face authentication technology, and deepfakes on the Internet that spread fake editing of videos and images. Face replacement and identity masking are used by either criminals or law-abiding citizens. Identity replacement tech, when operated on by criminals, leads to heists or robbery activities. Law-abiding citizens utilize identity replacement technology to prevent government or various entities from tracking private information such as locations, social connections, and daily behaviors.