Concern regarding the safety of QR codes continues to grow as the codes become more popular with both businesses and consumers. Some codes have been found to link to malicious websites that download viruses smart phones, putting the owners personal information at risk. Privacy concerns do not stop at the codes themselves, however, as barcode reading applications can also access a user’s personal information and distribute it in a number of ways. The fact that these apps can access such data may make consumers weary of scanning QR codes.
QR codes were first developed in Japan in the mid-90’s as a way to track inventory. Since their birth, the codes have become one of the most well used marketing tools in Japan, used by nearly every company in the nation. Outside of Japan, however, the codes are relatively unknown. Their arrival in the U.S. at some point in 2008 marked the birth of a new mobile marketing industry that has gained a significant amount of momentum today.
The youth of the mobile marketing industry, along with the obscurity of QR codes in Western society, has spurred many businesses to track how the codes are being used as a way to build more effective marketing strategies. The performance of codes is usually tracked through the mobile apps used to scan them. At the most basic level, these apps decrypt the codes and resolve to a mobile website. There are some apps, like the NeoReader from Neomedia, that collect personal information, such as name, address, gender and current location. This information is then sent to companies that analyze the data and build statistics based upon their findings.
While the this practice may seem benign, the real issue lies in the fact that these apps continue to collect information long after the mobile user has disconnected from the site attached to the QR code. In the case of NeoReader, the app monitors all mobile web traffic from the phone it is installed on. For those concerned with their online privacy, this may deter them from interacting with QR codes in general.
