On April 17, 2026, Aislelabs published the story, “How Grocery Stores Are Using Guest WIFI to Build Shopper Loyalty and Drive More Revenue.”
The company urges retailers to use “free WIFI” spots to collect information that most would consider private. Aislelabs states its mission clearly, without subterfuge or shame:
“We help businesses with physical locations unlock the power of WIFI and location intelligence to understand their visitors better, build lasting relationships, and drive measurable business growth.”
Its goal is to “transform WIFI” from a utility into a strategic asset, enabling businesses to “move beyond anonymous traffic and build direct, measurable relationships that drive real business outcomes.”
If you are a Walmart shopper, the invasion of your privacy is worse. In August, Walmart updated its customer privacy notice, spelling out what data the retailer collects on shoppers and how that data is used — and in some cases, sold. Among the many pieces of information it collects on shoppers, the privacy notice lists biometric information like retinal imagery, demographic information like ethnicity, financial information like income, vehicle information like license plate numbers, and precise location information that can identify where you are standing in a store. What Walmart doesn’t collect itself, it buys from third-party vendors. And what is Walmart doing with all of this data? Training its AI models, personalizing advertisements, making inferences about shoppers, and in some cases, selling it. In several places, the privacy notice notes that Walmart may receive payment for the data it gives to external companies.
Walmart plans to install digital price tags in all U.S. stores by the end of the year. These devices, called electronic shelf labels (ESLs), can change prices in mere seconds. With ESLs, Walmart can deploy price changes remotely across many stores at once, depending on the time of day, product demand, or even who is standing in front of the product. As a result, Walmart shoppers could be charged a different price at the register than the one they saw when they put an item in their cart. Or worse, they could pay a different price than the customer in front of them in the checkout line.
Last year, Walmart launched “Sparky,” its in-house AI shopping assistant. Customers can ask Sparky to recommend products, generate shopping lists, and even make purchases on their behalf. The tool is now used by roughly half of the tens of millions of monthly active users of Walmart’s mobile app. Customers must log in to their Walmart accounts to use Sparky, allowing the retailer to store information from their interactions.
Across several patent applications, Walmart details the troves of data it can collect on users. These are just some of the invasive facts it could collect.
- What you like, post, and who you’re friends with on social media websites
- The songs on your playlists
- Demographics, including gender, age, and “nationalities and/or ethnicities”
- Registered political affiliations and political activities
- Sensor data from smartphones and fitness wearables, including “steps walked [and] calories burned” and “heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, blood sugar levels, body temperature, [and] perspiration levels”
Walmart is building the technology to compile intimate shopper profiles and use that data to charge them accordingly.
If you have your cell phone with you as you shop, unless you take precautions, the local “free Wi-Fi hotspot” will divulge information you may wish to keep private. That information can be combined with data the company purchases to create a personal file without your permission.
New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey have outlawed this “surveillance pricing.” A bill in Harrisburg to do the same did not pass the Republican-controlled State Senate. Seattle, Washington, rather than wait for the state, outlawed using personal information to set prices.
In Philadelphia, landlords are already prohibited from using algorithmic rent-pricing software. Will the City expand its protection to stop surveillance pricing by Walmart and other retailers?
Our reporters sit through hours of city council meetings, dig through piles of documents, and ask tough questions other media overlook. Because we’re committed to addressing Philadelphia’s poverty crisis — and challenging those who sustain it. If you think this work is important too, please support our journalism.
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