Out of a reflex of distrust, I refuse to participate in any kind of loyalty program of the outlet of the large retail store around the corner.
I tell myself that by refusing to join the loyalty program (which basically comes down to scanning an anonymous loyalty card every time I make a purchase), I prevent them from adding my correlations (what products I buy, in what combos, at what time) to their data.
But since I normally pay by card, I guess they can (and do) already do that with my bank account information?
If I would pay with cash, they can still see those correlations per purchase, but they can’t track my purchases over time?
I believe phones broadcast a sort of fingerprint when searching for wifi and/or Bluetooth connections. No MAC address needed!
The MAC is generally the fingerprint. Looks like Apple handles this when searching as well:
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/wi-fi-privacy-secb9cb3140c/web
I haven’t heard of anything else besides MAC being broadcast during the searching phase. Can you give an example or technical term?
Phones routinely look for specific SSIDs by their names. Imagine you’re strolling through a mall while your appearance changes every 2 seconds, but you keep yelling out the names of 5 other peoole. People will not know who you are really, but they will be able to follow you around because they will know that it’s you who yells those 5 names no matter what you look like.