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Tesco could use artificial intelligence (AI) to encourage its shoppers to make healthier choices, the company’s chief executive has suggested.
About 22 million people are signed up to the loyalty scheme, which offers significant in-store discounts and rewards.
The retailer said that 80 per cent of transactions in its stores – of which there are 4,942 in the UK and the Republic of Ireland – are now carried out with the Clubcard.
Tesco’s chief executive, Ken Murphy, told the FT Future of Retail Conference that the Clubcard could “nudge” shoppers into making healthier choices, as well as continue to provide them with its existing benefits.
He said the card could “nudge” the shopper to say: “Look, I’ve noticed over time that in your shopping basket, your sodium salt content is 250 per cent of your daily recommended allowance.
“I would recommend you substitute this, this and this for lower sodium products to improve your heart health’.”
Mr Murphy said that new technology could improve shoppers’ experiences even further, alerting them to discounts that they may otherwise be unaware of.
He added: “It will completely revolutionise how customers interact with retailers. It can help to bring your shopping bill down, reduce waste and improve the outcome and power of that Clubcard.”
The retailer has already come under fire for Mr Murphy’s suggestion, with one privacy campaigner stating that people should be free to make their own decisions.
Big Brother Watch’s head of research and investigations, Jake Hurfurt, said: “It is astounding that Tesco’s CEO wants to use this data to tell us how to live our lives.”
As reported by the Telegraph, he added: “Mr Murphy’s comments should alarm everyone and serve as evidence that loyalty card schemes are based on mass-scale surveillance of customers. Tesco has no right to make judgements about what’s in our baskets or nudge us on what we should and should not be buying.”
Acknowledging that some customers might have concerns about giving the retailer so much data through the Clubcard, the chief executive said that it is a fair exchange for “the right kind of experience”.
“For me as a consumer, I don’t mind giving up that data if I get the right kind of experience back,” he said.
Professor Susan Michie, director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, told the BBC’s Today programme: “This in general is very good in terms of people’s health, because, especially things like salt content, people often have no idea.
“However, it’s really important that people be told what technology is being used in what way and for what purposes. So transparency’s really important.
“The other thing that’s really important is choice. So, as it seems to be at the moment, people just feed in their data and get these recommendations. However, what would be a step better would be they would have a choice about what data they give.
Tesco has said it does not “sell or share any individual customer data and we take our responsibilities regarding the use of customer data extremely seriously”.
It said it was not currently looking at rolling out a “nudge” policy.
