Kudler Fine Food's Frequent Shopper Program
BSA310
Kudler Fine Food's Frequent Shopper Program
Kudler Fine Foods, a “fine” grocery store based in San Diego, is looking to implement a frequent shopper program. This program is to enhance their current database that tracks sales and performs low-level data analysis, the kind most current stores use to keep inventory current. The program is set to provide a more detailed analysis of shopper’s spending habits at an individual level, which brings in a number of ethical, legal, and information security concerns. This paper is to discuss these concerns, what the company can do to protect such sensitive information, and what potential legal issues that may be faced implementing this system.
Ethical Concerns
This, above all else, should be the first consideration when implementing a system like this. For a system like this to work, customers will have many attributes of their lives revealed through deep analysis of their spending habits. Most people will be uncomfortable with such a notion, so the program cannot be mandatory. This must be left to the customer to choose to participate or not.
If customers do opt in to the program, everything the company plans to do with their info should be laid out for them to know right up front. Especially when it comes to sharing sensitive information with other companies, customers may trust Kudler, more than likely they will not trust other companies that do business with Kudler. A good way to handle this might be to give the customer a choice if their info can be shared with “third-parties” or not. This way Kudler can still get a good benefit from the customer participating in the program, and gives the customer a better sense of well-being knowing the information gathered will all be “in-house.”
Another ethical concern here is what exactly the customer gets for being part of the