Quick response codes and subsequent user tracking increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, The New York Times reports. The National Restaurant Association reported half of all full-service U.S. restaurants have added QR code menus since the start of the pandemic, while a number of high-profile retailers added codes for their services. American Civil Liberties Union Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said deploying QR codes "inserts the entire apparatus of online tracking" into a consumer's activities, resulting in even offline activities becoming "part of the online advertising empire."
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