Fake News: Victoria’s Secret Plants Tracking Devices in Bras
Introduction
Circulating social media in the summer of 2020, rumors were being spread that Victoria’s Secret was planting devices into their bras to track their customers. A user on TikTok made this claim and received three million hearts. According to USA Today, in June, one user uploaded a phot of the tracker and urged women to check their tags. Another posted a picture of the device in question, saying “Victoria secret buys people’s souls” and linked the device to sex trafficking. That same user claimed that the devices were specifically used in lingerie items and not other clothing items. On Twitter, users “linked the claim to QAnon”. With so much support from the social media world and being able to see the picture of the tracker is enough to convince some users that Victoria’s Secret is in fact tracking its customers. However, with some research and comments from the Victoria’s Secret company, it is clear this is yet another fake news story gone viral with absolutely no facts to back it up.
Research Results
Googling “Victoria’s Secret tracks customer’s” brings up a slew of articles debunking the claim. Snopes.com and USA Today are among the many results. They all state that this story is fake and provide substantial evidence to prove it. Snopes included the aforementioned Facebook post with the image of the tracking device that helped the story go viral, and clarifies what exactly the “device” is. Radio-frequency identification, or RFID, are used in some products according to Victoria’s Secret. However, as Snopes states, “RFID chips are used to track inventory in a store.” They also mention it can be used for theft prevention. Once the product leaves the store, it’s no longer tracked. This is proven thanks to expert Justin Patton, director of an RFID lab at Auburn University. He states that the type of RFID Victoria’s Secret uses in its products are a passive UHF tag, which means the tracker’s range is only a few meters. Since they don’t have batteries either, only a scanner can successfully track the RFID tags.
RFID tags and using them for inventory isn’t something new. In fact, it’s quite common. Both Snopes.com and USA today mention specific retailers that also use RFID or similar tags for inventory, including: Walmart, Macy’s, Target, Lulu Lemon, Levi’s, and Nike. A spokesperson for Victoria’s Secret said “We only use this technology in our back room and sales floors to help us manage inventory so that our associates can efficiently support our customers’ needs.” This further proves the claim in question is false, with a direct source from the company debunking it.
Conclusion
With hundreds of click-bait articles floating around our news feed, it’s easy to believe what you read at first glance. However, it’s important to verify the information by checking other sources and reading articles about the same claim to see if the story is true. In this case, viral posts caused social media users to believe Victoria’s Secret was planting tracking devices in their bras as a way to track their customers. However, when researched using Google, sites like Snope.com and USA Today quickly disprove the claim by explaining what the device is and how it works, providing quotes from Victoria’s Secret, and analyzing the validity of the original posts that went viral.
Works Cited
Evon, Dan, and Dan Evon. “Is Victoria’s Secret Planting Tracking Devices in Bras?” Snopes.com, 2020, www.snopes.com/fact-check/victoria-secret-tracking-device/.
Sadeghi, McKenzie. “Fact Check: Victoria’s Secret’s RFID Tags Do Not Track Customers.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 23 July 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/02/fact-check-victorias-secret-tags-do-not-track-customers/5351927002/.
