Letter: Privacy Issues With Walgreens' Balance Rewards Program

Walgreens has added a membership club and at least one neighbor is not pleased. Marianne has concerns:

I am upset at Walgreens.

They have a new “membership rewards” program. Not sure what it gets you, but I don’t want to be a “member” of Walgreens.

Today I went in to get a bunch of things, and because I am not a member, they disallowed all the price discounts on my items.

I spoke to the manager and he said he’d “make an exception” for my purchases. That is not the point. The information gathering is too pervasive especially since they already have all my prescription info. The advertising pricing is deceptive – it’s a neighborhood store - and only members get discounts? There’s something creepy about that. And that the manager could “make an exception”? What’s that all about? I don’t want to be an exception. I just don’t want to be a member.

Member clubs aren't new and it's no suprise that Walgreens would institute one. But Marianne has a good point - Walgreens is the only pharmacy in the neighborhood and already has a huge amount of protected health information on Noe Valley residents. Do you want them to also track your shopping habits?

It's bad enough that they make you push a button that announces "assistance needed in the hemorrhoids aisle."

For what it's worth, Walgreens states that it adheres to its privacy policy, and that HIPAA-protected information can only be linked to the Balance Rewards program with explicit consent.