Kaspersky store that only accepts personal data as currency
Kaspersky Lab has setup an unusual pop-up shop in London, called The Data Dollar Store.
Tech companies try to track your every move. Your Google searches. The videos you watch on YouTube. They’re all monitored by algorithms that want to serve you highly targeted ads. We don’t realise it, but the breadcrumb trail we leave online has value. Real, monetary value. To emphasise that point, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is running a pop-up shop in London called The Data Dollar Store this week. Inside, you’ll find exclusive t-shirts, mugs and screen prints by street artist Ben Eine. The catch? You can only buy them by giving up some personal data.
One by one they filed in and heard the store’s unusual rules: to acquire the mug, you had to hand over three photos, or screenshots of your WhatsApp, SMS and email conversations, to Kaspersky. To buy the t-shirt, it had to be the last three photos on your Camera Roll — so you couldn’t be selective — or the last three messages on your phone. The original print, finally, forced you to hand over your phone. A member of staff would then poke around and select five photos or three screenshots. You could barter with them, but ultimately it was their choice.
There was a mixture of excitement and nervousness in the store. Some people were caught off guard and immediately started rummaging through their phones, checking photos and messages for anything that might cause embarrassment. Others looked smug — clearly, they had been told the rules beforehand and prepared their devices accordingly. “This is stuff we give away freely all the time,” Eine told me. “But when you’re actually asked to exchange this private information and walk away with something that does have monetary value, people are like, ‘Whoa! What is actually on my telephone? What are the messages that I’ve sent?’ It’s a little bit scary.”
Arjun is a Full-stack developer, who is fond of the web. Lives in Chikmagalur, Karnataka, India
