Maybe they clarified it somewhere along the line, but I read the quartz article and the one before.
I can't think of anything more identifying that I carry than my MAC address(es). So say my MAC is 01:23:45:67:89:ab and Renew anonymizes this to "0001", clearly that's just as identifiable.
I genuinely can't think of a reason to gather MAC addresses other than to use them for profiling.
The human footfall/bean counter thing is great [1], but not worth any money to anyone. Seems more like a PoC...
I don't know a lot about AI recognition but I'd have thought you could have a camera counting people fairly easily.
I actually don't personally mind, I think it's fair game unless the government says it isn't - and then I can go back to just the worry of blackhats.
So unless I'm very mistaken this Reveal/Orb company are either building profiles, plan to, or have a business plan [1] that is going nowhere big.
[1] http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.j...