A rollout of digital advertising screens across UK apartment blocks has been met with criticism, as viewers’ responses to ads are filmed and tracked.
The screens, provided by 30Seconds Group, allow the company to track “occupant engagement” from residents via cameras as they wait for lifts to their apartments. The supplier is on track to deliver displays in the communal areas of more than 1,000 buildings by the end of 2025. In some cases, the installation and upkeep of these screens is paid for via the service charge that residents pay for the upkeep of the building.
30Seconds Group describes its offering as providing “ample time for viewers to absorb the message”, with extended interactions allowing for “deeper engagement, making it an ideal platform for delivering impactful and memorable content.”
The group describes its offering to brand partners as speaking to audiences “where they live and work, in a distraction-free environment to a captive audience.”
The company also describes its offering to residents as enhancing a property's “communal areas”, whilst also “improving communication, security and safety through our dynamic and engaging digital platform.”
However, privacy campaigners have criticised the installation of the screens, with Jake Hurfurt, Big Brother Watch, condemning the displays as “creepy as hell”.
Speaking to The Guardian, Hurfut said that: “Billboards equipped with demographic scanning tech have no place in people’s homes. They are the height of surveillance capitalism.
“We should all be able to move around the buildings we live in without being scanned against our will to monitor our personal characteristics or if we paid attention to an advert, and it is even more galling that residents of some buildings have to pay to be watched.”
Photo credit: 30Seconds Group