Indeed the purchase could be made for a household, but remember 'Big Data'. Large retailers (e.g. Supermarket chains) know increasing amounts about identified customers [note the 'identifED'], including the number of souls in the household - of course, the customer might be buying for friends, or to stock their village store, etc. BTW, most people have little idea how much their friendly supermarket knows about them ... it's a LOT, and growing.
Pharmacists can sell 32 tablets, other retailers can only sell 16 at a time. If you pay using a payment card, or with a loyalty card, a large retailer can/will link the purchases.
Regards - Michael Bacon
Grimbaldus Limited
> On 8 Mar 2015, at 13:33, Roland Perry <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> In message <[log in to unmask]>, at 11:26:33 on Sun, 8 Mar 2015, Michael Bacon - Grimbaldus <[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>> And the statement that: "health data therefore also include information about a person's ... excessive alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption or drug use" begs the question whether retailers' customer histories might be said to contain SPD, if, for example, a customer routinely purchases booze in excess of the recommended number of units per week,
>
> He could easily be buying or a family of six.
>
>> and/or (say) five packs of fags a day, and/or more than 16 paracetamol tablets each day (in the UK, in more than one tranche obviously)
>
> In the UK you can buy two packs of 16-tablets per transaction, and I'm not aware of retailers being able to correlate a purchase with one made earlier in the day, or another store.
> --
> Roland Perry
>
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