Canadian government slams Tim Hortons for using its app to spy on customers

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Canada's privacy watchdog says Tim Hortons used its mobile app to collect a lot of location data. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada demanded yesterday that the coffee and donut chain stop collecting location data and limit future collection. The commission says that Tim Hortons will implement the rules.

According to the full report, Tim Hortons tried to deduce customers behavior in order to target advertising at them, but they never used the data for that purpose. Tim Hortons updated its mobile app in May of last year. The data was analyzed to find out where users lived, when they worked, and when they traveled. When the Financial Post published an article exposing its detailed data collection, it sparked the commission's investigation.

According to records reviewed by the commission, Tim Hortons sought the data to support trend reports saying customers were switched to its competitors and to track shifts away from downtown locations and towards closer-to- home suburban ones. Whenever users visited a competitor of Tim Hortons, it generated an event. It flagged when people left major sports venues and when they came back to their place of business. According to the commission, Radar generated an average of 10 events per day for users.

Tim Hortons used the data only for broad trend-based analysis after considering using it to run tailored promotional offers based on where users were. Even if the data wasn't used, it was still stored by default for a year, and many studies show it's easy to identify individuals based on supposedly anonymous data. The program was stopped a few days after the investigation was announced.

Some apps give third parties broad access to the data they collect. Restaurants have promoted their programs. When in the vicinity of a Mcdonald's, people were encouraged to download the app and order discounted Whoppers. The Skift Table found that many restaurants had apps that tracked users. Tim Hortons isn't one of them anymore. The commission didn't find any evidence to the contrary, as the app only uses location data to identify nearby locations.