Caitríona Redmond: Are loyalty cards really worth signing away your personal data?

"In Ireland, four of the five main retailers operate a loyalty scheme for their customers. Aldi is the exception to the rule and has no virtual barrier to receiving value when shopping."

"Many of us will remember juggling physical cards in our wallets with a barcode to scan and in more recent times, a stack of small fobs on the set of house keys. With the advent of the smart phone however, we’ve been upgraded from a credit card sized solution to an app for every store."

My mother texted me about a pack of peanuts on special offer she’d tried to buy in her local supermarket. When she got to the checkout, the operator asked her to scan her app to get the cheaper peanuts, and here started the problem.

“I’m an older person,” she says, “I don’t like using apps, why do I need so many apps on my phone for every shop I go into? And what if I was even older and didn’t have smart phone, not everybody has one?” It’s a fair question. Despite being ‘older’ which is code for pensioner in Mammy’s lexicon, she is very tech savvy and well used to navigating online shopping, social media, and booking a holiday using her phone or computer. She resents sharing her personal information but has given me a precious exemption to explain her predicament.