Three selfies from your smartphone can buy you a t-shirt at this store

This pop-up store in London shows how important personal information could be.

We all know how important our personal data is. Big data and all the major fields that come with it, have long been used by tech companies to visualize public trends and track people’s interests. The data thus collected can be used in different capacities, like for example in targeted marketing that we keep experiencing on social media platforms.

Now, this store in London has put a direct price on the user’s data. Titled The Data Dollar Store, the store has been sprung by the famous cyber-security firm Kaspersky. The store packs articles from a street artist Ben Eine and range from simple t-shirts, mugs to screen-prints. These items can all be bought without ever needing a wallet, i.e by paying through your personal information – the photos in your smartphone in this particular case.

The street artist, Bin Eine, who is famous for his art in London told Artlyst, “Art and data have similar parallels – both have value but at what cost? By selling my exclusive artwork that money cannot buy, but instead is exchanged for data, Kaspersky Lab opens a new way of thinking about the meaning of data and its value.” Likewise, the Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, David Emm said, “We live in a digital-first society and share huge amounts of data every day, without even realising it.”

Street Artist Ben Eine

In the store, the users have the option to buy t-shirts and mug etc. depending upon the data they are ready to give up. Three picture, of your choosing, from your smartphone gallery can get you a mug while three picture, of the store’s attendant choosing, can get you a t-shirt. If you are comfortable with giving more of your data, five picture, of the store’s attendant choosing, can get you a good quality limited edition t-shirt.

The pictures you give them are then put on a screen for the viewers to see, which could be sometimes uncomfortable to the buyers and the store has been setup specifically for that purpose. If you are ready to give up your information, you better hurry for the pop-up store has only been opened for two days.

Images and News — Via Engadget