When you watch these ads, the ads check you out

I am a somewhat skeptical person when it comes to a lot of things in life and this story only makes me feel more cynical towards certain things in life. There are ad screens out now in some local malls grocery stores and other areas that have small cameras near them to monitor what kind of people stop and look at the ads and what kind of people just walk past the screens.
Technology is a great thing but it can get to a level where it is almost scary and seeing things like this taking place. People get paranoid over things like big brother and other scenarios that we are being watched but just how crazy are these theories? More and more we are seeing that it is possible to watch people without them being noticed whether that be the government watching us or some kind of company tracking how well their ads are doing.
Just because there is a possibility of me being watched it doesn't mean that I am so paranoid that I will alter the way I live because this may be happening. Do I like the possibility of me being tracked by someone? No of coarse not but, I don't have anything to hide and I am not some kind of a criminal attempting to stay under the radar.
There is something about the technology in this story that really scares me. By this I mean that if there was a person waiting around the corner from these ads watching what type of people are stopping to look I would not be as scared. The weird thing is that I still realize the fact that a person around the corner observing me without my knowledge is in effect the same thing as the camera being set up and people in a studio watching me without my knowledge.
In this system that is in place in some malls there are not actual people watching the screens to track how long each type of person watches the screen. There is a computer system that can tell a person's gender, age, and ethnicity. The computer then tracks these results in a large database that it keeps. To me the fact that I am being tracked is the issue regardless if it is being done by a person sitting near a screen or a computer system.
Knowing that this is going on will change the way I approach these signs in public places. The fact that I may be being watched is something that does not sit well with me.