Shops can track you via your smartphone, privacy watchdog warns

UK retailers are able to follow and target customers using facial recognition software and handset identifiers broadcast via Wi-Fi

The UK's data protection watchdog has warned that retailers can track every move of their customers using their phones and target them using facial recognition software.

The technology, which has been available for the last couple of years in some form, is capable of tracking a smartphone using the unique identifier that it broadcasts via Wi-Fi. It is the same as that used by beacons which track smartphones using the unique Bluetooth identifiers every smartphone puts out when the wireless communications service is switched on.