How is badging for food even a small issue?

Would you want your employer to know about your exact food habits for years of your life?

How about your government?

How about your insurance company?

The badging for food thing is because the IRS is coming after tech companies saying that it should be treated as a taxable benefit. It helps to have metrics about how widely used the perk is in arguing that it shouldn't be taxable.

Badging for food doesn't say anything about the evolution of Google's culture over time; it only says that the IRS is now coming after Google.

You blew it out of proportion. It's more like you badge in a certain cafe. No one knows what you ate in that cafe.

Google already tracks every time you badge in at any door meaning they already know exactly where you are, when you com in, where you go for meetings etc. Badging for food is very minor in comparison.

Just because you badge in for your company doesn’t automatically mean your government or insurance company will get the data. Even if they did, they could probably get it in more detail from other sources like your bank and credit card company. Also they don’t track what you get, so I don’t see what the big deal is.

Oh come on. Those are 3 wildly different use-cases. Your employer is providing you a perk as an incentive to keep you at the company longer hours. They provide a complementary meal, they log things like how many people eat, how often, what times, etc, to improve the service.

Your government is mandatory, your employer is voluntary.

Your insurance company would likely offer you a discount if you provided them this information. Again, on a voluntary basis. In general when something like this is required by an insurance company it's heavily regulated.