Predictive surveillance is here and it's near impossible to escape. My independent research cannot happen if you don't support me: / thehatedone
What if I told you that McDonald’s has a 500-page-long dossier of your personal life? A dossier that doesn’t just contain information about what you ate the restaurant but one where the company has followed you everywhere on the web? Where it tracked down your social media posts and spied on you from inside third party apps on your phone? It’s a personal file on you individually with your name, address and everything that identifies you and your movements. And it’s not just a historical record of what you did. It’s a list of predictions McDonald’s made about what they think you’ll do in the future.
If this doesn’t sound real or too much like from a dystopian SciFi novel, all you need to do is to visit McDonald’s Privacy policy website and request your very own copy of every piece of data McDonald’s holds on you. If you are a resident of California or any member state under the European GDPR law, you can get access to your very own Minority Report.
Not only is all of this real. The true scale and depth of the new age of AI corporate surveillance goes far beyond what we previously thought was even imaginable.
McDonald’s isn’t alone in this new surveillance scheme and in fact, they probably weren’t compiling these records all by themselves. They could’ve been helped by what is now a secret AI industry that is doing something behind closed doors that nobody has any inkling about.
They are collecting information on hundreds of millions of people with a new purpose. Not for targeted advertising. They don’t run any ads. Not for personalized experience either. They don’t have any users. What they do with all that data is to give every individual person a secret “consumer score”.
It’s a hidden rating that can determine everything from how long you’ll be put on hold during a customer service call, what offers you get or what rewards you’ll receive from a loyalty program. A retailer can use your score to fix prices you pay or products you see. Airliners use these scores to choose who gets a seat upgrade. Credit card companies can use these consumer scores to decide if they want to make you a counter-offer if you want to cancel your card.
Edit sources fixed thanks to @HelloRoot@lemy.lol
Sources [0] https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonalds-built-a-515-page-dossier-on-me-it-says-ill-never-leave/ [1] https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/corp/nfl/pdf/MCD%202025%20Annual%20Report.pdf [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-score-access.html [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-score-access.html [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-hold-for-45-minutes-it-might-be-your-secret-customer-score-1541084656 [5] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/business/electronic-scores-rank-consumers-by-potential-value.html [6] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/personalized-pricing-has-spread-across-many-industries-heres-how-consumers-can-avoid-it [7] https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/personalized-pricing-ban-9c0d92a9 [8] https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/privacy.html [9] https://innovationcenter.msu.edu/who-goes-there-a-new-whole-body-biometric-recognition-system/ [10] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1116295/how-a-new-type-of-ai-is-helping-police-skirt-facial-recognition-bans/ [11] https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.17206 [12] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/malte-spitzs-ted-talk_n_1701775 [13] https://www.ted.com/talks/malte_spitz_your_phone_company_is_watching [14] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/02/china/china-beijing-protests-police-mobile-signal-intl-hnk/index.html [15] https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2025/10/17195957/The-Loyalty-Trap.pdf [16] https://futurism.com/future-society/reddit-breaks-mobile-website-download-app [17] https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20260401139/employers-are-using-your-personal-data-to-figure-out-the-lowest-salary-youll-accept [18] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/employers-are-using-your-personal-data-to-figure-out-the-lowest-salary-youll-accept-c2b968fb [19] https://www.ft.com/content/b127ee7a-5ac4-4730-a395-c9f9619615c7 [20] https://futurism.com/future-society/tech-billionaires-city-startups
I can't go completely silent / dark on the web in today's world. However, I only ever pay in cash or use a credit card. No crappy apps on my devices unless absolutely essential and a web page won't do it. Location tracking is off, unless essential for a specific app and even then, only turned on temporarily. De-googled / Debloated as best I can safely on a Sony mobile device. Using Rethink DNS with carefully chosen DNS filters. I'll almost certainly have my own little series of portfolios available to the big commercial outfits. However, these should be minimized significantly. Looking for thoughts and suggestions.
Another one that doesn't get talked about much is BLE beacons inside of many large stores. If Bluetooth is on (assuming a mainstream phone) these devices are constantly, passively pinging for it. At the very least, the store can use these to know how people in general navigate through the store, where they linger, etc, and can keep track of unique devices.
Worst case scenario: you've installed the store's app, given it full perms and you're logged into an account tied to your real identity. In that case, of course now they know it's you specifically, and can start to build a profile - your in-store location is just the beginning.
They may also know what other apps you have installed, who else you might shop with, can try to predict what kind of mood you're in based on how you're moving, where you're coming from, where you go after, and on and on.. Some of the implications are quite creepy. It gets to a point where enough people give themselves up voluntarily that they can unmask those who simply leave their Bluetooth on as well.
If you reinstall the OS and don't install gapps, it resolves most of these issues.
I read recently target has cameras and audio equipment in their carts now. I haven't shopped at target in years so idk that first hand but it absolutely wouldn't surprise me.
that seems too expensive for something that people steal all the time.
Thank you, had missed that. Will switch that off too until needed.
Why use a credit card? Monero is much safer if cash isn't an option.
Probably because it’s 1-4% cheaper, depending on your card.
Huh? I think in most countries you get a discount for paying with cash.
Credit cards add huge risk of fraud and customer chargebacks. And there's a percent transaction free.
It's usually better for merchants (in risk and cost) and customers (in privacy) to use cash.
Where I live, it’s extremely rare for the price to be different based on payment method. If you pay by credit card, you get 1-4% cash back, depending on your card. Mine is 4% on groceries and gas, and 2% on everything else. Plus some other random perks.
Practicality for me and costs. However, will look at Monero again. Appreciate the pointer
Also checkout anonshop and proxy store.
They're services that let you pay them in monero, and they pay with whatever the merchant accepts.
Amazon and eBay and all the major online shit commerce sites never work for me on hardened web browsers over tor, so it's the only way for me to buy there