The Target Corporation Collection and misuse of personal information Minneapolis, Minnesota

On Sunday, June 13th, at approximately 9:30 AM, I chose varied items to purchase at the Woodland Hills, California, Target store.

One of these items was a bottle of wine. When I arrived at the check out desk I was asked for identification to show my age. I am 73 years old and, though I consider myself in good condition, I can never be confused with someone who can not legally purchase wine.

I presented my California drivers license to the cashier. Without asking my permission, warning me or giving me notice of any kind the cashier swiped the license data strip into Targets computer memory data bank. By doing so Target was able to gather the following personal information:

1. Name  2. Home address  3. Birthday  4. Drivers license number  5. Social Security number  6. Physical description.

I immediately objected and called for the manager. An individual purporting to be the on duty manager arrived and stated that it was Targets policy to swipe the license of any purchaser of alcoholic beverages and retain that data. This was confirmed by the cashier who stated that it was in Targets training materials. The manager further stated that simply looking at the birth date on the license would not be sufficient if I wished to purchase wine as Targets policy required the full data on the license be swiped into the Target data bank.

I enquired that were I to use a credit card for the purchase would the drivers license information be stored with the credit card information. The manager told me that yes that was Targets policy.

It was quite obvious that the totality of the managers replies were limited to stating her understanding of Targets written policy. I declined to purchase the wine and asked that the information already collected be deleted. The manager stated that it would be if I didnt buy the wine. Regrettably I do not believe her.

It is apparent that Target Corporation has instituted a written policy meant to obtain personal and private information about its customers who purchase alcoholic beverages, to use said information for Targets business purposes and to sell and profit from said information all to the harm, risk and detriment of Targets customers who are given no notice of said purpose and intent by Target Corporation.

Neither are Targets customers offered an opportunity to decline the obtaining and use by Target of said information at the point of purchase of alcoholic products.

As I am a retired attorney I wrote to the President of Target reminding him of the many corporations who have been hacked into by computer thieves and that customer lists are the primary goal of said hackers. I pointed out that Target obviously did not care about the personal identity loss of it's customers and that Target puts its profits before the risk of identity theft to its customer base.

A week later I heard from one Terry "Last Name Refused" at Target's HQ.  Terry was a Customer Service Representative.  When I asked for her last name she refused for "security" reasons.  Note that though Target gets my full name and extensive personal data, it's employees refuse to supply their last name.

Terry proceeded to read from a response script and stated that the only thing Target records is the "date of birth" and no further information.  I asked that if I were to request a print out of the memory data from their reading of my license data strip I would get just a listing of dates of birth.  She replied "Yes."  I may be 73, but I'm not senile!  That is just plain ludicrous.

I asked her if my just presenting the license as I am obviously over 21 would suffice.  She again started reading from her script and said that Target would not sell wine to anyone who refused the swiping of the license into their memory bank.  When I asked why.  She had no answer other then repeating the preformatted script.

It is my opinion that Target records all of the information on my license data strip with the intent to use same and profit thereby.