Because they couldn’t. He bought the bag before they automatically tracked all purchasers with a unique ID on the bags they sell. The CEO of PD actively called the tip line.
Because they couldn’t. He bought the bag before they automatically tracked all purchasers with a unique ID on the bags they sell. The CEO of PD actively called the tip line.
Why would I want a company to track my backpack? How is that a feature?
If you have ever registered a product you purchased with the manufacturer, you’ve done exactly that. They’re not talking about tracking the product after you buy it. They’re basically just talking about automatic proof of purchase.
Yes, but the article seems to imply that data can be subpoenaed. Ergo despite their presumed positive intentions, it’s a noteworthy risk.
I don’t think that ‘tracing’ here means something like ‘there’s a GPS tracker in every backpack’.
You could see this type of backpack in a CCTV shot. Later the police recovered a backpack - that they thought was the one on CCTV - and now need to find the owner. If it was registered at the company by the owner, they may have been able to say “oh yes, that serial number is registered to a customer. Here’s their name and address they told us when registering at $date”. If the customer never registered their bag, the only piece of information they could give out would (maybe) be something like “This bag was sent to an Amazon warehouse at $date, ask them if they know who bought these bags around $date”
Ah yes, product registration. Good to know me absentmindedly not registering is fighting against police tracking and CEO business strategy.
Except the “by the owner.” The problem here is they are auto-registered at time of purchase.
Peak Design sells to third party resellers, so no, their products aren’t registered automatically.
I don’t know this specific brand but because of this quote in the article I assumed it’d not be automatically registered:
Why do they say “if you do choose to register” if you don’t have a choice?
They don’t. Nearly everything that you buy has a unique serial number, and if consumers are buying direct from manufacturers it could, in theory, link a consumer to a serial number. It’s unlikely that they could make those connections, though. Peak sells direct, but they also sell through 3rd party stores and distributors, where there is an abstraction between the serials and consumers.
Old peak design bags do not have unique serial numbers, but batch numbers shared among many bags. Not defending PD, but if that’s true, there isn’t much they could’ve done to help with the investigation even if they wanted to.
If it’s lost you can report it. It helps get the bag back if someone finds it and reports it missing. It’s obviously a toss up, but there are honest people who try to return things.
I would assume these are intended for use when hiking and mountain climbing. It could save your life if someone else has your GPS coordinates when you go missing.
Any serious hiker concerned about that would carry an SOS beacon for an emergency. I would I no way want my backpack broadcasting my GPS location 24/7 in case I get lost in the woods.