Students need not pay with cash at this coffee shop — just give them personal data instead
We are in the age of information, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that your user data has become a valuable asset for firms in most industries. This is why several apps and sites now ask for permission to access data through cookies. Such is the case in a coffee shop known as Shiru Cafe, which looks like a regular cafe with coffee machines and baristas but is only open to students with IDs who are willing to share their data.
University students who give away their names, phone numbers, email addresses, and details of their majors, can get coffee for free at the cafe. Students also need to reveal their date of birth and professional interests through an online form provided by the cafe. On its website, Shiru Cafe says, "We have specially trained staff members who give students additional information about our sponsors while they enjoy their coffee." It also adds that the philosophy of the cafe is, "Through a free drink we try to give students some information which sponsor company would like to inform exclusively for university students to diverse the choices of their future career."
According to reports, companies are allowed to host recruitment sessions inside the cafe. However, two Brown students in a letter to The Brown Daily Herald, called for a boycott of the cafe in December, questioning the principles of the sponsor companies. It read, "According to The Herald's article about the Shiru Cafe, 'last year, 40 percent of JP Morgan Japan's new hires were Shiru Cafe patrons.' This statistic is alarming, given that JP Morgan engaged in deceitful financial practices which likely contributed [to] the 2008 financial crisis and then became the only large financial institution to make a profit during the crisis."
However, many students are unbothered, like Nina Wolff Landau, who says that all this information is readily available on LinkedIn or other websites with a quick Google search. "Maybe I should have been more apprehensive, but everyone has your information at this point anyway," she said. "To give out my name and email and what I study does not seem so risky to me."
The word 'Shiru' means "to know" in Japanese, and the cafe was founded in Kyoto, Japan, back in 2013. According to the website, 76 percent of Brown University students are registered with Shiru and they have an average of 600 orders each day. Right now, Shiru Cafe in Providence doesn't have any sponsors, and the information collected is used to help the companies that the cafe will bring on as sponsors. It said that the student information is securely held and will not be sold to third-party companies. "They're very good about keeping everyone's information close. They don't sell it, they don't do anything of that sort," Sarah Ferris, assistant manager at the Shiru Cafe branch in Providence told NPR. "If they're giving you something for free, this data that's being collected, for any vendor, there seems to be more value in the data than in the product," Ferris added. As per reports, The Providence location is the only Shiru Cafe currently operating in the U.S.
