We are accustomed to stores using cameras to catch thieves. But new cameras are changing the focus from the criminal to you. The video can now give the store real time information about you. They track your gender, your age range and then monitor where you go in the store. The store no longer just knows what you buy, but can know what you looked at, what you picked up and put down on your way to the register… (Click here to read the News Article)

Of course this is just stage one. Verizon is working to use our cell phones’ information to paint a much clearer picture. Tracking which stores we enter. Allowing the store to know who we are when we arrive…

So soon I will not be a random guy, but the store will know me as Sean Taylor. Though they may greet me at the front of store, my name will not matter to them. In their minds I will be the customer who occasionally shops from the clearance section, but normally just follows his wife around…

Right now this seems haunting, but I will soon grow used to it. There will be advantages. Store employees will be able to point me toward the clearance section (hopefully without giving me the “cheapskate” look…). Or maybe give me a piece of candy to keep me happy as I follow Meg (this, unfortunately, would work – I am not as far removed from grade school as I would hope).

And I do not need to be scared of this advancement. It is not the store’s computer knowing my name that is concerning.

Instead I should be worried HOW the camera defines me.  And this progress happened ages ago – when people began to label one another based on possessions. After all the camera’s computers did not come up with these priorities. They have learned how to rank humanity from us, because “People look at the outward appearance…

but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1Samual 16:7