Tesco stocks up on inside knowledge of shoppers' lives

* Crucible database is exhaustive - and secret
* Government bodies are tapped for information

Heather Tomlinson and Rob Evans
Tuesday September 20, 2005
The Guardian

Tesco is quietly building a profile of you, along with every
individual in the country - a map of personality, travel habits,
shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are.
A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called
Crucible, that is collating detailed information on every household in
the UK, whether they choose to shop at the retailer or not.

The company refuses to reveal the information it holds, yet Tesco is
selling access to this database to other big consumer groups, such as
Sky, Orange and Gillette. "It contains details of every consumer in
the UK at their home address across a range of demographic, socio-
economic and lifestyle characteristics," says the marketing blurb of
dunnhumby, the Tesco subsidiary in question. It has "added intelligent
profiling and targeting" to its data through a software system called
Zodiac. This profiling can rank your enthusiasm for promotions, your
brand loyalty, whether you are a "creature of habit" and when you
prefer to shop. As the blurb puts it: "The list is endless if you know
what you are looking for."

[... ...]

How does Tesco get the information? Clubcard is used to target
promotions at particular cardholders. But Crucible is separate and
Tesco insists that while loyalty scheme data is used by Crucible it
does so anonymously rather than a house-by-house, name-by-name basis.

Dunnhumby's chairman, Clive Humby, offers a few more clues. Companies
such as Experian, Claritas and Equifax have databases on individuals
and Crucible collects from them all. Any questionnaire you may have
completed, any reader offers you responded to, are bought to build up
a picture of attitudes and habits. Crucible also trawls the electoral
roll, collecting names, ages and housing information. It uses data
from the Land Registry, Office for National Statistics and other
bodies to generate a profile of the area you live in. Zodiac is
employed to provide a more detailed profile. The combination is
valuable to many consumer goods firms: dunnhumby generated profits 
of [UKP]4m on sales of [UKP]28m in the last year for which accounts 
are available. Some [UKP]12m of business was done directly with Tesco.

[... ...]

Full article at Guardian Unlimited
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,9061,1573989,00.html


Cheers, Steve..

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