Heard a radio report a month or two ago on my way to work. It seems some magazine(I thought it was “D Magazine” but I can’t find the story on their site) had broken a story about restaurants starting to have hidden microphones under tables and recording conversations. The theory was that this would help improve the service by allowing management to scan for things like “Where is that damn waiter!” and “They screwed up my order.” The other implications are obvious but were not mentioned as the official line of the companies who were practicing this. Supposedly restaurants who follow this practice have disclaimers posted(a sticker on the door according to my memory of the radio report) about conversations being recorded for quality control purposes. The only resturant which was mentioned by name on the radio report was the Outback Steakhouse. We had a group go to the Outback from work yesterday and we couldn’t find such a sticker or other disclaimer.
I’ve Googled, I’ve Lexis/Nexis’d, I’ve searched the D Magazine homepage. I can’t find anything on it but my memory of the radio report is clear on every detail except the name of the magazine. Does anyone know of this practice or has anyone seen/heard similar reports?
No restaurant would be stupid enough to do this. Once customers found out about it (and they would eventually find out about it) their business would go down the tubes.
and the law suits would follow quickly afterwards.
Restaurants know customers don’t like the waiting staff earwigging on their conversations. So there’s no way they’d try this and expect no complaints.
As for them building a database on you; they only know about what you tell them. Those who surrender this information for special offers/loyalty cards/no reason only have themselves to blame.
This may be why you haven’t been able to find the article on-line–D Magazine has likely pulled it from their on-line editions.
Of course, Digital Witness could be lying about not using mics at tables…but it looks like the radio report you heard could have been based on this later-corrected article.
Well, let’s assume that they * are * doing it to improve your dining experience. Let’s examine the practicality of that in any restaurant big enough to justify the expense. Let’s assume 50 tables. Therefore, at least 50 conversations happening in parallel, modulo a few silent eaters. Just how likely is it that any snippet of conversation such as “where is that waitor?” or “this steak is too rare – I’ve seen cows get better that was hurt worse than that.” will stand out from the babble? And if they adopt a scanning approach, well, the odds of picking up anything useful are minimal.
Now, who’s going to do the listening? Any restaurant I’ve ever heard of has people working full out. Not too many waiters, waitresses, managers, or cooks are going to have time to sit around listening to conversations.
Unless you’re dining at the FBI Bar and Grill, I don’t think you have to worry about microphones under the table.
But it is possible that the magazine got pranked – I could imagine some fun loving jokester clandestinely putting up a sign saying “Conversations might be monitored.” just to see what would happen.
Thanks Duke. That’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. That Digital Witness company looks mighty scary. Although I will say this for them, they have their ducks in a row.
With a CEO who is a Harvard-educated Lawyer I’d guess they know exactly what they’re dealing with as far as privacy and legal issues go. Another thing you can say for them, they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is. On their site you can get a “Live Demo” of their product and get this.
Anyone feel like checking out Mr Hagar and seeing if he surfs the Dope?
From the quote in Duke’s post: “Some of these restaurants mic tables with Digital Witness equipment as a tool for training waitstaff.”
It then goes on to say that the particular restaurants listed don’t do this. The logical question, then, is which restaurants do do this? The clarification could stand some, er, clarification.
Heh. Back just before Clinton gave Gerry Adams a visa, a group of Irish-Americans in New York City with links to Sinn Fein, met to plan how to convey Adams’ request to the White House and how to lobby on his behalf. They knew what they were planning was a political bombshell so they decided to meet outside their usual “territory” where no one would recognize them. They chose an Italian restaurant with big booths and lots of privacy so no one would overhear their discussions.
It turned out, however, that the restaurant was a mafia hangout and that the FBI had bugged the place.
Obviously, a computer. With a voice recognition program.
Voice recognition programs do have to be trained to the individual speaker when you want to achieve high accuracy transcription to text, but not for something like this. All you need is for the system to recognize of a limited number of ‘trigger’ words by any speaker, and then flag that section of the tape for review by a human.
Years ago, it was alleged that the Secret Service had such a system in operation, with huge computers monitoring all the international calls in/out of the USA, listening for keywords like “assasination”, etc. With modern technology, a single PC could probably do this for dozens of tables. So it should be technically feasable. Whether it’s cost effective, or an efficient way of monitoring service is another question. How much does it cost to have those little self-addressed “How was your dining experience?” cards at each table?
Assuming this could be done, I don’t think it makes any sense for a restaurant to place hidden microphones under the table. A place like Outback Steakhouse has a large turnover in employees. Plus, restaurants (even chains) tend to go out of business frequently. I just don’t think the expense is worth the perceived benefit.
In a related vein, when Walt Disney was planning the VIP dining lounge Club 23 for Disneyland, one of his original ideas was to have all the tables equipped with microphones. Guests would place their orders by speaking into the table’s centerpiece, and an employee in the back room would take their order. He nixed that idea in the end, tho.
Don’t be so sure about that. Here in Wisconsin, American TV & Appliance (a large, multi-store business) had microphones all over the stores and on the people working there as well. When the story broke in the news, people were pissed, and the stores had to publicly appologize. But their still alive and well.
This proves 2 things: 1) businesses are stupid enough to pull this shit, & 2)it might not put them out of business when word get’s out.
Of course, conversations at a restaurant table are more intimate than those in a department store. People would get really pissed about it!
As pkbites points out, probably not. In the U.S., department and clothing stores often have security cameras in the dressing rooms where customers are trying on clothes. You’d think people would find this outrageous and refuse to shop at these stores. But they don’t.