Albert Heijn Bonus

#miniDEC

1. The organization

⇒ I will be providing an abbreviated data-ethical consultation for the supermarket chain Albert Heijn, with a special focus on their 'persoonlijke bonus' (personal discount) service.
customer loyalty programs

2. The AI technologies Employed

⇒ Albert Heijn uses machine learning technologies to learn and influence your shopping behavior. By analysing previous shopping data they predict future shopping patterns and try to influence this future shopping behavior by giving you personal discounts to make you visit their store more often or buy more of a single product or buy more products then you were planning on in general. To be able to make these predictions data collection is necessary which happens through using their 'bonuskaart' (personal discount card or app on your phone). In the app, a user can also create a shopping list which might also play a role in their shopping pattern creation. Most definitely, it collects which products you end up buying. Followingly, it can start introducing personally discounted product to you through the app. Not only through a list of personally discounted products but also through the 'bonus box': a list of products from which you can choose which you would like a personal discount on. The choices that are made in the 'bonus box' might also play a role in further shopping pattern data collection. Testing direct preference between products.

3. Ethical concerns

⇒ Albert Heijn has been using and slowly expanding their discount ecosystem, starting with a simple, unpersonal discount pass to an app with personal discount where you can even choose between discounts. Luckily, Albert Heijn does not yet force you to use personal discounts or the app to receive general discounts. So, there are still ways to get discounts and even get personal discounts without getting influenced in your shopping behavior too much. However, their app is not as innoscent as it may seem. Even though it is not yet necessary to use the app, the app slowly becomes more incorporated in the shopping experience. It can now be used to open the gates after paying and it can be used as a scanner to scan product while shopping. The app can now even be used for finding recipes. This is not only for your own benefit, as Albert Heijn also tracks your usage of their app and bases its algorithms on it. The app itself creates an environment that could seriously impact you shopping behavior, which we should not treat lightly.

The personal discounts could reinforce addictive shopping patterns

As explain earlier, personal discounts are a big part of the utility of the Alberth Heijn app. You can scroll through your personal discounts and you can choose a few more personal discouts from a selected list of products. These products are mainly based on the products you have bought before, how frequently you bought the product and how much of the product you have bought. Furthermore it can introduce new products to you that you might be interested in given your earlier shopping behavior. For example, if you buy a lot of white bread, the app can give a personal discount of 10% on white bread for a selected time frame. As a result, you might decide to buy more bread or visit the store more frequently than you otherwise would have, as you might not want to miss this discount or want to get the most out of it. This might not instantly seem to raise ethical concerns, especially as it is white bread. However, this type of influence on your shopping behavior can become more ethically dubious when it concerns addictive shopping patterns, like addictions. These personal discounts could then contribute to or reinforce addiction in product like alcoholic beverages or candy.

The personal discounts could reinforce unnecessary consumption

In my last concern, I used my white bread example to illustrate how shopping behavior is influenced. In my former ethical concern I used this to illustrate how this can reinforce addictive shopping patterns. However, there is more to that example than just addictive shopping patterns. The personal discounts also reinforce unnecessary consumption. As you might want to get the most out of your personal discount buying more of a product then you were planning on and need or buying more different products you didn't need. Consequently, you might end up with too many product which might lead to them spoiling or to you consuming too much. Both unnecessary consumption. In the example of the white bread, it might lead you to buy way too much white bread as it is now cheaper. However, it could become stale quickly or spoil, making you decide to throw it away. You could also start eating more white bread as you have so much of it which is also unnecessary and unhealthy. Furthermore, you could have bought many different types of bread, or products like cookies and candy, solely because they were personal discounts. If this behavior occurs every week or every few weeks as a result of personal discounts it can have a serious, negative effect on your consumption.

The personal discounts system stores personal data

Not only does the personal discount system of the Albert Heijn influence your shopping behavior. It also stores a lot of personal data. Personal data concerning your shopping patterns of not only food, but also sanitary products and basic medical supplies. Also personal data like your date of birth and your address are saved. The information it gathers gives a good picture of parts of your life, like food preferences like being vegan or not. From this data you could even predict if someone is pregnant. ^[1]

Consequently, the data that is stored by Albert Heijn Bonus is highly personal and should be treated with great care. In its privacy policy, Albert Heijn gives you the option the access, edit or even delete the information it has collected on you, by sending an email to their privacy officier. In terms of sharing information, Albert Heijn states it shares a lot of information with a lot of different companies, excluding directly identifying information like names, email-adresses or your address. However, other information could still be identified on its own or in combination with other information collected online. Albert Heijn also does not share how it makes sure these other companies treat your data rightly or how necessary it is it takes these risks with your data. Making is unclear if these decision are necessary or lead to unnecessary risks.

4. Recommendations

In terms of recommendations, Albert Heijn could start by giving users more option or protecting them from certain risks. They could exclude products like candy or products containing alcohol from personal discounts, or make it an option to exclude these categories. Personal discounts would then have less of an effect in addictive shopping patterns. Secondly, Albert Heijn should be cautious with the amount of discount on product that can easily spoil. Large discount or discounts where the number of product influences the price should be kept to a minimum as to not create unnecessary wastage of fresh products. Furthermore, personal discounts should not introduce you to too many new products as ones as this could lead to a desire to try a lot of new ingredients on top of your normal shopping behavior, creating an environment of unnecessary consumerism. Lastly, Albert Heijn should be more cautious with your shopping data. It could start by not collecting and storing medical supplies data. Furthermore, it could implement better anonymization techniques and share less data with partnered companies. Especially companies like Google and Facebook. Furthermore, it could make providing personal data like your adres of date of birth optional, as your address is only needed for deliveries and your date of birth is not necessary at all as it is still checked in the store or with a delivery.