Fans of the team began to study with the help of special devices. Is it legal at all?
Recently, Manchester City said that since last season they have been monitoring their fans … with the help of microchips.
Is it legal at all?
What is the secret of the “smart scarf”?
On July 27, the English champions spoke about an unexpected project, the idea of which would make many Russian fans shudder. Manchester City have announced the production of “smart scarves” that will help the club monitor and study the behavior of fans. The citizens developed the innovation in collaboration with Cisco, an American company that has been a technical partner of Manchester since 2019.
The new “City” scarf was named “Connected Scarf”, which literally means “connected scarf” in Russian. The meaning, however, in this case, the word “connecting” is more suitable, since the idea of u200bu200bManchester is to “bring the fans closer to the game than ever before.”
However, it is not yet clear how exactly the “citizens” want to implement this plan. But it is clear that the smart scarf will be used in order to collect information about the fans. He will do this with the help of a special sensor “EmotiBit”, which is in contact with the fan’s neck. The sensor monitors several physical indicators of its wearer at once: pulse, movement, body temperature and electrical activity of the skin (EAK).
It is the ability to measure the EAC that distinguishes the Manchester scarf from the usual fitness bracelet. With the help of an electrodermal sensor, the chip captures changes in a person’s perspiration, with the help of which it determines his level of stress, and, consequently, his emotional state.
Spying under the guise of concern
Cisco said that pilot tests of the newfangled device have already been carried out – apparently, within the framework of the last season, since the new one in England has not yet started. To test the smart scarf, the company invited six City fans to watch their favorite club’s next game. The gadget recorded the reactions of the fans to 120 game moments so that the club could analyze what specific emotions the fans were experiencing during the match.
“With this data, we will be able to understand the fans better than before. We will be able to become more inclusive and learn better what role sports play in our lives,” said the CTO of Cisco in England.
The invention of such scarves fits into two modern trends at once. Firstly, today, advanced clubs like City, in the framework of sports research, prefer to work with calculable data, which is obtained using various ingenious metrics: take at least xG with all its variations. Previously, however, this concerned only the game itself – now Manchester has taken up the interaction with the fans.
Secondly, and this is no longer limited to football, large companies are looking to collect as much information as possible about their users in order to adapt to their habits and capture as much of their attention as possible. At City, of course, the idea is touted as a way to “provide a more personalized experience for the fans” rather than extort more money from them by putting them under real surveillance at the same time.
However, no one will force fans to wear “spy” scarves. To date, City’s innovation remains part of a closed program: according to the press, the gadgets have so far been used by only a few fans of Manchester and its American sister city, New York City. The device will appear on free sale next season.
