[Matt]

Supermarket giant Tesco is installing hundreds of hi-tech screens that scan the faces of shoppers as they queue at the till to detect their age and sex for advertisers.

The store giant has signed a ground-breaking deal with Lord Alan Sugar's Amscreen in a move which last night sparked fresh concerns from privacy campaigners about the growing use of "invasive" techology in the nation's shops.

The "OptimEyes" system will be rolled out into 450 Tesco petrol forecourts, which serve millions of customers a week.

It works by using inbuilt cameras in a TV-style screen above the till that identify whether a customer is male or female, estimate their age and judge how long they look at the ad.

The "real time" data is fed back to advertisers to give them a better idea of the effectiveness of their campaigns and enable them to tailor ads to certain times of the day.

Ads for Red Bull could run in the rush hour with ads for women's magazines timed for after the morning school run.

The technology echoes hit 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, where actor Tom Cruise's character is bombarded by personalised ads as he walks down a street once sensors detect him by scanning his eyes.

Simon Sugar, Lord Sugar's son and Amscreen chief executive, told industry magazine The Grocer: "Yes it's like something out of Minority Report, but this could change the face of British retail and our plans are to expand the screens into as many supermarkets as possible."

He added: "We're extremely excited to call Tesco a screen network partner."

Full story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agr...vertisers.html

I know we give away a lot of information online these days, and that CCTV is everywhere, but this just seems like a complete invasion of privacy...