As we are all well aware, everytime you purchase something from a supermarket (or any other place for that matter), information about the purchase is recorded. Sometimes, this data contains information that means it can be traced back to you. This especially happens if you use a loyalty card such as Nectar or Tesco Clubcard. So, what data is actually collected each time you scan your clubcard? We wanted to find out.
The Data Protection Act (DPA) allows people to request copies of the data companies hold about them. Using the DPA, we’ve sent a request to Tesco to find out what information they have about me.
Why are we doing this? Partly because we’re curious people, but also because we might find out something of use. Tesco might hold some data that we could use to build a fantastic new service, or it might just be a list of things I’ve bought over the last few years. At the very least, it’ll enable us to write a guide for helping other people make requests under the DPA. However, until we ask, we won’t find out!
You can follow the progress of our request from start to finish on our DataBlog (RSS feed), or using the tescodata tag (RSS feed).
If you’ve made Data Protection Act requests to Tesco before, please let us know your experiences.
