[Guest Post]The Hidden History of Credit Cards: How Your Spending Data Became a Surveillance Goldmine

From Store Credit to Predictive Profiling—How Credit Cards Turned Everyday Purchases Into Behavioral Tracking Tools

Welcome to another edition of Guest Post Tuesday. Today I have

John A Mackey

back with another insightful post on the link between credit cards and digital surveillance. This post ties in very nicely with my post from this weekend on Palantir.

I’m very thankful to be able to share John’s expertise in this area with you all.

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Enjoy this post!

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Big Brother Isn’t the Government—It’s Your Credit Card

When I say, “Big Brother is watching,” you might think I mean the government. I don’t. Not this time.

The real Big Brother is your credit card—and it’s not just watching. It’s collecting, analyzing, and selling your data for profit. That’s not paranoia. That’s the business model.

Every time you swipe, tap, or type in those 16 digits, you're feeding a multi-billion-dollar surveillance engine. Your buying habits are tracked through barcodes, timestamps, and location data. That information is then bundled and sold—by credit card companies, by data miners, by the credit bureaus themselves.

Yes, credit bureaus. The same companies that score your trustworthiness also package and sell your behavior. Experian, for example, doesn’t just report your payment history — they sell detailed consumer profiles. Maybe you’re labeled “Frugal American.” Maybe you’re tagged “Rodeo Drive Chic.” Either way, you’re a product.

Your smartphone listens. Your apps track. Your browser remembers. And the ad you see five minutes after that random conversation? That’s no coincidence. This isn’t conspiracy. It’s capitalism.

So—is this good? Is it bad? That’s for you to decide.

But before you do, here’s a quick and revealing history of how the credit card transformed from a convenience tool into one of the most powerful surveillance devices in your pocket.

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Part I: The Velvet Rope

Store Credit in the 1800s

Before tech giants were harvesting your data 24/7, department stores were already perfecting the art of watching you—disguised as customer service.

In the late 1800s, credit didn’t come in a plastic rectangle. It came as a token of loyalty—literally. Shoppers were issued engraved nameplates, brass key fobs, or paper cards that tied them to their accounts. These were the first "payment cards." But more than that, they were identity tags. And once you were tagged, you were tracked.

By the 1880s and 1890s, big-city department stores—think Macy’s, Marshall Field, Wanamaker’s—realized credit wasn’t just a sales tool. It was a form of control. They extended credit not to help customers, but to tether them to the store. Credit became a velvet rope—marketed as an upper-class privilege while quietly driving up profits and dependency.

You weren’t just buying shoes. You were being profiled.

Behind the scenes, these stores built crude but powerful surveillance systems. Customers would "identify themselves" at the counter, transactions were logged manually, and entire billing departments were tasked with tracking and analyzing spending behavior—by hand. In essence, these stores became early data brokers, long before the word existed.

This wasn’t about helping customers manage cash flow. It was about owning the relationship, the behavior, the habits. They were building a profile of who you were based on what you bought.

Sound familiar?

Fast-forward to today: that same surveillance blueprint has been digitized, scaled, and supercharged. Every swipe, tap, and click is a data point. Credit card companies and credit bureaus now sell your data in bulk to marketers who categorize you as “frugal American,” “value shopper,” or “Rodeo Drive chic.” You’re not a customer—you’re a data product with a spending score.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t just economics. It’s behavioral science, weaponized for profit.

So if you think credit scoring is just a neutral number, or that your loyalty card is there to help you save five bucks, think again. The system wasn’t built to serve you. It was built to study you, shape you, and sell you—all the way back to the day your great-grandmother charged a hat to her store account.

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Part II: Plastic and Power

Rise of Universal Credit Cards

By the 1920s, charge cards were already a familiar part of American commerce. But it wasn’t until the late 1960s that their surveillance potential began to raise alarms.

That’s when computerized record-keeping emerged, and the vision of a cashless society started to take shape. Even then, one lawmaker cautioned: “Every commercial action will become a matter of record.”

In 1973, sociologist James Rule warned that credit cards were becoming powerful surveillance tools. He was concerned about how much data companies like BankAmerica were collecting from everyday purchases. Each credit card swipe, he realized, wasn’t just a payment — it was a data point. Rule wrote that “every transaction is a source of information on the cardholder—not just the amount charged, but also the date, the type of purchase, and the merchant involved.”

To him, this meant that financial transactions could reveal detailed patterns about a person’s life — what they buy, where they go, and how often. He saw early on that credit cards were becoming more about tracking behavior than just making payments.

This idea helped shape what we now understand as the “surveillance economy”—a system where data, not just dollars, is the real currency.

In the late 1920s, a breakthrough in payment technology emerged: the Charga-Plate. This small metal plate brought identification and record-keeping into a single, streamlined tool.

Embossed with a customer’s name, address, and account number, the Charga-Plate was the first device used with an imprinting machine. When pressed onto a sales slip using carbon paper, it created a clear, instant copy of the customer’s information.

Before this innovation, salesclerks had to handwrite each customer’s details—an error-prone and time-consuming process. The Charga-Plate reduced mistakes, sped up transactions, and quietly advanced a key idea: linking personal identity directly to purchase history.

It was more than a convenience—it was the beginning of mechanized consumer surveillance.

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Part III: Swipe and Surrender

POS Systems and Data Collection

In today’s rapidly evolving consumer payment ecosystem, three key players dominate the landscape: universal credit card networks (like Visa and Mastercard), retailers who accept card payments, and the processors who manage the transaction flow between them.

Universal credit cards provide consumers with broad purchasing power across a wide range of merchants. These cards are accepted globally, enabling seamless transactions whether you're buying a cup of coffee downtown or booking a hotel overseas.

Retailers play a pivotal role by integrating payment systems into their sales process, allowing customers to pay quickly and conveniently. To do this, they rely on payment processors—companies that handle the secure transfer of payment information between the customer’s bank and the merchant’s bank.

Together, these three entities form the backbone of the modern credit economy. Each has distinct incentives, but their coordination is essential to the smooth functioning of digital commerce.

By the 1990s, First Data had become a dominant force in credit card processing. Originally established in 1969 to serve as a transaction processor for banks issuing Visa cards, the company’s influence grew rapidly. In 1980, American Express acquired First Data, accelerating its expansion. By 1996, First Data was responsible for processing 30% of all card transactions in the U.S. and authorized one out of every three credit card purchases made at a cash register.

This rise wasn’t just about convenience—it was about control. As universal credit cards, retailers, and third-party processors like First Data joined forces, the humble payment card evolved. By the late 1980s and 1990s, it had transformed into a sophisticated tool of electronic surveillance—tracking who you were, where you shopped, and what you bought.

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Part IV: The Surveillance Economy

Modern Predictive Profiling

Surveillance Capitalism: You’re Not Just the Customer — You’re the Product

🖥 Every transaction — online or in-store — runs through a computer.
Each one creates a digital record.
But it’s not just tracking what you bought.
It’s tracking you.

🔍 Your identity. Your habits. Your value.
Every swipe, tap, or click turns your behavior into data:
• What you buy
• Where you go
• How often you spend
• What you might do next

💰 That data gets:
✅ Tracked
✅ Analyzed
✅ Scored
✅ Sold

This isn’t a side effect.
This is the business model.
Google built it. Retailers, banks, and platforms followed.

⚠️ You’re not just paying with money anymore.
You’re paying with your behavior. With your data.
And in today’s economy — that’s more valuable than cash.

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👁 Final Thought & CTA

What began as a convenience— “buy now, pay later”—has become a Trojan horse for behavioral data extraction.

We're not just buying with credit—we’re being bought and sold.

—John Mackey, CreditGeni.us
Unmasking the system one swipe at a time.

👉 If you found this eye-opening, share it.
Subscribe to CreditGeni.us on Substack.
Let’s blow the whistle on the scorekeepers.

Timeline of the History of the Credit Card and Consumer Surveillance

• Late 1800s:

• Department stores begin using store credit as a way to tether customers and drive profits.

• Early "payment cards" in the form of engraved nameplates, brass key fobs, and paper cards are issued to track customer identity and tie them to accounts.

• Department stores like Macy's, Marshall Field, and Wanamaker's develop rudimentary manual systems to track and analyze customer spending behavior, acting as early data brokers.

• 1880s-1890s:

• Big-city department stores solidify the use of credit as a tool for control and profiling, not just convenience.

• Late 1920s:

• The Charga-Plate is introduced as a metal plate embossed with customer information. This device is used with an imprinting machine to create instant copies of customer details on sales slips.

• The Charga-Plate streamlines transactions, reduces errors, and represents the beginning of mechanized consumer surveillance by directly linking personal identity to purchase history.

• 1920s:

• Charge cards become a familiar part of American commerce.

• 1960s (late):

• Computerized record-keeping emerges, sparking concerns about the potential for a cashless society where "every commercial action will become a matter of record."

• The surveillance potential of universal credit cards begins to raise alarms.

• 1969:

• First Data is established to serve as a transaction processor for banks issuing Visa cards.

• 1973:

• Sociologist James Rule warns about credit cards becoming powerful surveillance tools, noting that each transaction provides data on the cardholder beyond just the amount charged (date, type of purchase, merchant). He recognizes that credit cards are becoming more about tracking behavior than just making payments.

• 1980:

• American Express acquires First Data, accelerating the company's expansion.

• Late 1980s - 1990s:

• The combination of universal credit cards, retailers, and third-party processors like First Data transforms the payment card into a sophisticated tool of electronic surveillance, tracking identity, location, and purchase details.

• Point of Sale (POS) systems become integral to data collection.

• 1990s:

• First Data becomes a dominant force in credit card processing.

• 1996:

• First Data is processing 30% of all card transactions in the U.S. and authorizing one out of every three credit card purchases made at a cash register.

• Today:

• The surveillance blueprint established by early department stores is digitized, scaled, and supercharged.

• Every swipe, tap, and click is a data point.

• Credit card companies and credit bureaus sell bulk consumer data to marketers who categorize individuals based on their spending habits.

• The modern "surveillance economy" operates where data (behavioral information) is a primary form of currency, arguably more valuable than cash.

• Credit scoring is presented as a tool that studies, shapes, and sells consumers based on their spending behavior.

Cast of Characters

• James Rule: A sociologist who, in 1973, warned about the surveillance potential of credit cards, recognizing that each transaction provides detailed data about the cardholder's life and habits. His observations contributed to the understanding of the "surveillance economy."

• John Mackey: The author of the excerpt "THE HISTORY OF THE CREDIT CARD," published on CreditGeni.us. He highlights the transformation of credit cards from a convenience tool into a powerful surveillance device and advocates for awareness about the collection and sale of behavioral data.

• Department Stores (e.g., Macy's, Marshall Field, Wanamaker's): Pioneering businesses in the late 1800s that first utilized store credit as a means of customer tracking and control. They developed early, manual systems for collecting and analyzing spending data.

• BankAmerica: A company mentioned in 1973 as an example of how much data companies were collecting from everyday credit card purchases, which concerned James Rule.

• Credit Bureaus (e.g., Experian): Companies that not only score creditworthiness but also package and sell detailed consumer profiles based on spending behavior.

• Universal Credit Card Networks (e.g., Visa, Mastercard): Key players in the modern credit economy that provide consumers with broad purchasing power across a wide range of merchants and facilitate the global acceptance of credit cards.

• Retailers: Businesses that accept card payments and integrate payment systems into their sales processes, playing a crucial role in the collection of transaction data.

• Payment Processors (e.g., First Data): Companies that manage the secure transfer of payment information between the customer's bank and the merchant's bank, becoming central hubs for processing and accumulating vast amounts of transaction data.

• American Express: A company that acquired First Data in 1980, accelerating its growth and influence in credit card processing.

• Google: Mentioned as having built the model for the "surveillance capitalism" economy where data is collected, analyzed, scored, and sold.

• CreditGeni.us: The platform or publication where John Mackey's article "THE HISTORY OF THE CREDIT CARD" is featured.

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Another big thanks to

John A Mackey

for participating in Guest Post Tuesday. If you’d like to participate and have an idea for a future guest post leave a comment or send me a direct message so we can discuss.

Until next time…

Stay Informed. Stay Secure. Stay Curious.