Some Target baskets can track you in-store. Here’s what to know

In August and September 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the retailer Target used a Bluetooth device on its baskets that tracked shoppers in store.

The claim came from an Aug. 29 TikTok video in which a person who appeared to be a Target employee claimed the retailer fitted its baskets with trackers that followed shoppers throughout the store.

The alleged employee said: 

Hello, I just want to make a PSA: You are now being tracked at Target. These baskets, this thing, that’s a tracker, so they’re now tracking shoppers at Target, at your local Target, for, supposedly, “consumer habits.”

Other users shared similar claims about Target’s alleged tracking on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers also contacted us about the claim.

In short, Target does track shopper locations using the basket-mounted Bluetooth beacon that the TikTok user showed in their video. The beacon transmits its location to Target’s “smart” overhead LED lights, which in turn can communicate location information to its app.

Acuity Brands, which Target said supplied its LED lights, explained in a news release in 2017 that by using its lights and beacons attached to items such as shopping carts it could deliver “highly accurate, real-time positioning services for customers” through a retailer’s app. Acuity Brands said Target renewed a multiyear deal for products including its indoor location services in 2020.

According to its privacy policy, Target still used LED light and Bluetooth technology to track shoppers in-store in August 2026. The policy advised that customers who did not want to share their store location data could disable location sharing on their device or in the Target app.

We contacted Target to confirm how it collected and used data about customers in store using Bluetooth beacons, as well as how customers could opt out of tracking. We await a reply to our query.

What we know about Target tracking

The TikTok user who shared the video about Target’s basket-mounted beacons on Aug. 29 shared another video (archived) the day after, identifying the exact product Target used to track shoppers as a Bluetooth beacon from Acuity Brands. A Reddit user who posted (archived) about the device six months earlier showed a device with the same FCC ID as the one the TikTok user identified.

The Federal Communications Commission grants FCC IDs to products that meet the necessary regulatory standards for wireless communication.

The product’s user manual said it is a Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon that “communicates its position to Atrius Assets,” the software that Target has used since at least 2020 for indoor location services.

Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons are small devices that send out radio signals that can be picked up by nearby devices. Beacons can only transmit — not receive — data, so they generally rely on apps to interpret and use the data they are sending. 

In terms of tracking, if many beacons are sending their location, a device can interpret those signals and triangulate the location of an individual beacon, or individual shopper holding a basket fitted with a beacon. Target wrote in its news release in 2019 that its lights interacted with its app to find customer locations, suggesting that the basket-mounted beacons sent their signals to the lights.

It was unclear from the available information whether Target used the data it gathered about individual shoppers’ routes through their stores beyond providing location-based offers through the app or guiding customers to specific products.

Target used Bluetooth beacons since at least 2015

The technology publication TechCrunch reported that Target and other retailers have used beacon technology to track shoppers in store and send them location-based offers since at least 2015 and that the retailer added Bluetooth beacon-driven indoor mapping to its app in 2017.

Target appeared to still use this technology in 2026. Its privacy policy in August 2026 said Target might use location information shared by customers’ phones to “help you find nearby Target stores; or, in-store location through the use of your phone’s blue tooth signal, LED light chip technologies or other technologies will permit Target to find nearby products for you, get you real-time deals, auto-sort your shopping list and more.”

Target said in its privacy policy that shoppers who wished to opt out of sharing their in-store location could prevent their devices from sharing their location with Target “by adjusting the permissions on your mobile device or within the relevant app.”

It did not appear from the beacon’s manual that shoppers could turn the device off themselves, meaning Target would still collect information about where the basket traveled if a shopper used it, but could not connect that data to a specific phone or customer if the device’s owner turned off location sharing or did not use the Target app.

Sources