WIRED reporter Reece Rogers used his California right to access his data and requested his file from McDonald's loyalty program. He got back a 515-page report, golden arches on top, that did more than log his orders. It predicted his future [Original Article].
What the file predicted
From his past purchases, McDonald's estimated:
2.16 visits in the next six weeks.
$13.49 average spend per order.
$29.15 total predicted value over those weeks.
An "attrition likelihood" of 0, meaning the model sees a customer who will never leave.
It tagged his behavior as "Food-Led Afternoon Snack" and "On the Go Lunch in a Rush," ranked a Large Diet Coke as his number-one item, and logged every order, every Monopoly code he scanned, and every prize.
Why it matters
"McDonald's secret sauce is really commercial surveillance," said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. Experts said this is standard for US loyalty programs. Individually the data points look harmless, a burger here, a soda there. Aggregated over years and run through AI, they become a precise map of your routine: where you are, when, and what you'll do next. "The aggregation and collection of this information, as well as its processing through AI, can create pretty invasive and personal information," said UC Irvine law professor Ari Ezra Waldman.
What you can do
The same laws that let the reporter see his file let him delete it, and he did. In California and a growing number of states, you can:
Request the data a company holds on you (look for a "Privacy Rights" or "Do Not Sell or Share My Info" link).
Request deletion once you've seen it.
Skip the loyalty program, or use it sparingly, if the discount isn't worth the dossier.
Up next · Wednesday
The EFF's free guide to shrinking your own dossier, one setting at a time.