Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#21

Post by jonnybgood » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

394549 wrote: post #9

emptybits wrote: post #4

Not just "eavesdrop on workers". Also "eavesdrop on customers". The patent itself tells us: "the sound sensors can capture sounds resulting from guests talking while waiting in line at a terminal or any other sounds resulting from the presence of guest ... the sound sensors can capture audio of conversations between guests and an employee stationed at the terminal. The system can process the audio of the conversation…

I wonder how they'd make the required notifications to make this legal in one-party consent states. I don't see how this could fly at all in a two-party consent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

They don’t need consent. A store is semi-public space. There is no expectation of privacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_space

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#22

Post by russdpale » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #8

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a reference to something specific?

Supposedly, Amazon employees watch the cameras in their stores, to know which Prime account to charge for which item. It sounds like a step between self-check and scan-bag-go, with a "mechanical Turk" to bridge the gap - turn Loss Prevention into legitimate checkout and a profit center.

lol so THAT is why they are so coy about how the system actually works. My neice asked one of the employees and he was constantly giving dodgy answers to everyone. I figured they just didn't want any employee letting any proprietary knowledge out..

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#23

Post by Alupis » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

394549 wrote: post #9

emptybits wrote: post #4

Not just "eavesdrop on workers". Also "eavesdrop on customers". The patent itself tells us: "the sound sensors can capture sounds resulting from guests talking while waiting in line at a terminal or any other sounds resulting from the presence of guest ... the sound sensors can capture audio of conversations between guests and an employee stationed at the terminal. The system can process the audio of the conversation…

I wonder how they'd make the required notifications to make this legal in one-party consent states. I don't see how this could fly at all in a two-party consent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

From what I recall, even in two-party states, simply informing the other party is implicit consent, even if they say they do not consent to being recorded. The only way to reject consent is to hang up the phone, ending the conversation.

(one-party state means I know I'm recording the conversation, so it's legal - I'm not obligated to inform the other party).

In stores, you'll often see a sign somewhere near the entrance that says something like "Smile, you're on camera!", along with a CCTV showing the feed - which is enough to implicitly consent recording when on the premises. If you don't consent, you must leave the store.

So, I imagine a simple sign telling customers both audio and video surveillance is being conducted will be sufficient.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#24

Post by notadoc » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #16

...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve? This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game. It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the…

> ...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve?

If you have read any sci-fi from the early/mid 20th century, you already know the answer to that.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#25

Post by cafard » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

phyzome wrote: post #19

trophycase wrote: post #15

This has got to stop people. I'm serious. We need to take collective action and do something before this stuff gets out of hand. Anyone got some resources on getting involved?

Talk with your friends about unions.

Talk with UFCW about its efforts to organize Walmart. The idea did occur to them some time ago. If it were at all easy, it would be done by now.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#26

Post by sillysaurus3 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #16

...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve? This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game. It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the…

For any given website, if you can log in and chat with an employee, the conversation is logged. This is normal.

If you call a corporation and chat with them, the conversation is recorded and used for quality purposes. This is normal.

If you grab some groceries and ask to return one of the items you thought was on sale but wasn't, and this fact is noted by an audio recording system, suddenly this isn't normal.

I don't have feelings about this either way, but it's interesting to contrast the situations.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#27

Post by phyzome » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #25

phyzome wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk with your friends about unions.

Talk with UFCW about its efforts to organize Walmart. The idea did occur to them some time ago. If it were at all easy, it would be done by now.

Oh yeah, I'm not suggesting it would be easy to organize Walmart! But if people start pushing back against the anti-union propaganda by discussing it as a viable option in various areas, normalizing it again, that would be a way to help.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#28

Post by danesparza » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

thetruepickle5 wrote: post #17

trophycase wrote: post #15

This has got to stop people. I'm serious. We need to take collective action and do something before this stuff gets out of hand. Anyone got some resources on getting involved?

Get a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, conveniently available at Amazon :)

The author now sees the premise to his own book as 'flawed': https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/anarch...

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#29

Post by cryoshon » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #11

The realist in me knows that the people working at Wal Mart will accept this, because in the end they have no choice. But when you continue to squeeze people and control them more and more closely, eventually they wake up and realize who has the real power. Eventually the guillotine rolls out, and everything starts over.. Can we not do this this time?

this isn't a toe-in-the door surveillance maneuver to test the waters for people accepting it. this is scraping the barrel to get whatever last dregs of control remain.

we can choose not to roll out the guillotines this time.

but then we'd just get violated for longer.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#30

Post by s73v3r_ » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #16

...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve? This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game. It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the…

Honestly, a big part of it is the lack of ethics training that engineers receive. Far too many engineers have a, "The problem is fun/interesting, that's all the further I'm going to think about it. The implications of what I'm working on are not my department." We need to start thinking more about what we're building, how it's going to affect the world, and how it can be misused.