Who's Your Data?: Smart Cards, Coffee Cards

I am staying at a Marriott hotel this week and I can’t find my customer loyalty card that earns me free nights and upgrades. What happened to the universal smart card? I went to a seminar in the 1980’s that promised it was just around the corner. I just looked around the corner…it aint there. Was it the civil libertarians who killed the smart card? Maybe I am confusing that with the electric car. Why would a civil libertarian care if there were electric cars? Supposedly the smart card will usher in the dreaded Big Brother Orwell thing. The problem with that argument… 1984 was a book. It’s not real. It never happened. The only freedom we have lost is convenience.

Maybe we don’t have the technology to pull it off. Even as I write that sentence I know how stupid that is. Of course we have the technology to give every man, woman and child in the world a smart card. Doesn’t mean they won’t lose them. That’s a different problem. And yes, there will be giant server farms managing the accounts with giant databases and giant catalogs. Guess what? There are right now.

Maybe nobody wants one. That’s because there is no room in the world’s wallets and purses for another card. My favorite coffee shop has a customer loyalty card. So does my second favorite. My wife has 43 cards in her extended purse and we turn most of the card offers down. These are the essentials. If there was one universal smart card for every transaction, purses and wallets would be non-existent. No Brighton’s, no Coach. Sure, there would be fraud. There is fraud now.

We wouldn’t need currency or coins. The savings would be enough to do serious damage to real problems like hunger and disease. So we are back to the Big Brother scenario. It’s the only one I can think of that would resonate with enough people to kill the smart card. The smart card would not be the first step towards a totalitarian society. There have already been lots of totalitarian societies in human history. The smart card would not concentrate power into the hands of the few to oppress the many. That happened a long time ago. We are still here. Meanwhile…I found my Priority Club card for Holiday Inn and my Starwood Preferred Guest card for Westin and an expired $10 off coupon for Carrabba’s Italian Grill, but no Marriott card.

Who's Your Data?

Smart Cards, Coffee Cards

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