Privacy as it pertains to loyalty cards seems to be a hot topic of news lately.  Consumers are concerned that stores might use the information they give along with their store rewards cards for something other than store rewards.  At the same time these stores do want to gain as much consumer knowledge as they can from their customers.

Here’s one case where a little information from a loyalty card helped in a big way.

A man in central Pennsylvania is in some pretty hot water today.  Apparently Earl Long, 48, made a trip to his local grocery store (a Giant food store) near Harrisburg PA last week.  Only problem is Earl didn’t go to pick up bread, milk or eggs.  Earl went into the store where he used his cell phone’s camera to take pictures and video up the skirts of at least two female customers.

Old Earl was allegedly snapping photos from behind a candy rack near the store’s self-checkout lane. Long was identified as a suspect using a credit card receipt and on surveillance video.

Police then worked with the store and were able to track Long’s address down via his rewards card, turns out he needed some eggs while he was there after all and had used his card at checkout.

Long was taken into custody on Friday and booked on charges of invasion of privacy.  He’s currently being held on $5,000 bail in the Dauphin County Prison.

Via The Mercury.