{"id":5432,"date":"2026-08-13T04:39:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T04:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5432"},"modified":"2026-08-13T04:39:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T04:39:45","slug":"mcdonalds-built-a-515-page-dossier-on-me-it-says-ill-never-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5432","title":{"rendered":"McDonald\u2019s Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I\u2019ll Never Stop Eating There"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When I first<\/span> downloaded the McDonald\u2019s app<\/a> years ago, I signed up for its loyalty program hoping to get better deals. Why not get some cheap french fries? While I understood that this would entail some type of data tracking<\/a>, I didn\u2019t grasp how the information would be used to algorithmically predict<\/a> my next purchase.<\/p>\n

As a California resident, I have the legal right to access the data a company stores about me. So, I decided to request that information from McDonald\u2019s to better understand what one of the major fast-food companies is collecting about its customers. A few days after I visited the McDonald\u2019s Privacy Rights Center<\/a> site and requested access, I received a 515-page file in my inbox with the iconic golden arches stamped across the top.<\/p>\n

When customers sign up for loyalty programs, like the one offered through the McDonald\u2019s app, they might not fully realize the extent to which their data is being aggregated and used in predictive models.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcDonald\u2019s secret sauce is really commercial surveillance,\u201d says Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy<\/a>, a group that advocates for consumer protections. Privacy experts I spoke with said this level of detail may feel invasive, but it’s fairly standard for how large companies in the US run their loyalty programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report contains specific pieces of personal information about you that were identified by searching McDonald\u2019s systems which contain information about our customers,\u201d read the report\u2019s intro. It was lengthy and difficult to parse, so I used a generative AI<\/a> tool to extract key information<\/a> before verifying details with the original document and reaching out to privacy experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcDonald’s takes data privacy and security seriously, and we take robust steps to safeguard customer information,\u201d a McDonald\u2019s spokesperson tells WIRED via email. \u201cLike many digital loyalty programs, we use information such as past purchases to provide a more engaging, personal customer experience\u2014like delivering the most relevant deals, offers and messages. Our customers continue to have privacy choices available to them as outlined in our privacy statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of my data report contains a detailed account of past McDonald\u2019s transactions as well as offers the fast-food<\/a> company sent me and how many loyalty points I accumulated. Essentially, every time I opened up the app to grab a bite to eat, it created a detailed record about when, where, and what I purchased. The log was even more thorough than I anticipated, including a record of every time I\u2019ve scanned a code as part of its returning Monopoly sweepstakes along with the prize I received.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first downloaded the McDonald\u2019s app years ago, I signed up for its loyalty program hoping to get better deals. Why not get some cheap french fries? While I understood that this would entail some type of data tracking, I didn\u2019t grasp how the information would be used to algorithmically predict my next purchase. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[706,238,1093,177,87],"class_list":["post-5432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-ads","tag-advertising","tag-mcdonalds","tag-privacy","tag-software"],"yoast_head":"\nMcDonald\u2019s Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. 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