A U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program designed to allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients to buy groceries online could expose them to unwanted data collection and manipulative online marketing.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Center for Digital Democracy, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, according to a news release.
The foundation collaborated with four civil rights, digital rights and health organizations: Color of Change, UnidosUS, Center for Digital Democracy and Berkeley Media Studies Group, according to the release.
The groups sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, urging the USDA to take immediate action to strengthen online protections for SNAP participants.
Online grocers and retailers use a variety of digital techniques — including granular data profiling, predictive geolocation tracking, personalized online coupons, AI and machine learning — to promote unhealthy products, encourage impulsive purchases, and increase overall spending at check-out, according to the report.
Those e-commerce data practices, according to the report, are likely to have a greater effect on SNAP participants, which include low-income communities, communities of color, the disabled, and families living in rural areas.
“It is also unclear whether the new online ordering program will be able to deliver on its promise to increase purchases of fresh produce and other healthy foods, especially in an e-commerce marketplace that foregrounds and aggressively promotes processed foods that are high in fats, salts, and sugars,” the report said.
The report recommends extending online ordering for SNAP participants to include farmers markets and other local produce suppliers.
The USDA launched its e-commerce pilot last year in a handful of states, with Amazon, Dash’s Market, FreshDirect, Hy-Vee, Safeway, ShopRite, Walmart and Wright’s Market approved initially. The program has rapidly expanded to a majority of states, in part as a result of the current COVID-19 crisis.
“In the absence of strong baseline privacy and e-commerce regulations in the U.S., the USDA’s weak safeguards are placing SNAP recipients at substantial risk,” Katharina Kopp, one of the report’s authors, said in the release. “The kinds of e-commerce and Big Data practices we have identified through our research could pose even greater threats to communities of color, including increased commercial surveillance and further discrimination.”
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