If this system did not error out and display the error messages to the mall shoppers, it would still be unknown.
Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
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Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#12I'm wondering if just setting up a webcam in a public spot for a few years is enough these days to make a million bucks. I mean, don't you think that someone would buy a billion images of people walking about. It would be excellent for ML teams. LOL
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#13>The company also argued shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals it had placed on shopping mall entry doors that referred to Cadillac Fairview's privacy policy. Do what now? Physical spaces have privacy policies? We're really sleepwalking into a dystopia. If you don't like the privacy policy of your shopping mall, you're free to shop... online, where they get even more behavioral data on you. Yikes.
> shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals
Indeed there's a huge glaring problem here: many of these malls have branded entrances (Shoppers Drug Mart, Best Buy, etc) through which a large portion of consumers walk into the mall, and these alleged decals are not present in those entrances. Here's an example [1]. Frankly I don't see said decals even in the non-branded entrances[2]
They're going to have a very hard time convincing the commissioner that people were in fact aware of these decals AND any "privay policy" therein. A simple survey would easily show that people are completely clueless about it (anecdote: I used to frequent CF malls quite a bit when I was in Toronto and never saw anything of the sort, even despite being the type of person that might actually read random stuff posted at entrances).
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7788812,-79.3447734,3a,75y,1...
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7789409,-79.3444783,3a,75y,1...
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#14I'm wondering if just setting up a webcam in a public spot for a few years is enough these days to make a million bucks. I mean, don't you think that someone would buy a billion images of people walking about. It would be excellent for ML teams. LOL
Why would they pay someone $1 million for images that they can capture in a few weeks by parking a van with cameras in a crowded place?
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#15If this is all privately held data that can't be accessed without a warrant... why not?
Just so I'm clear, the argument against this is:
- Merchants should be able to hire humans that sit around looking at camera screens all day trying to find shopping patterns, shoplifters, etc.
- Any attempt to automate this tedious task is dystopian and evil
?
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#16>The company also argued shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals it had placed on shopping mall entry doors that referred to Cadillac Fairview's privacy policy. Do what now? Physical spaces have privacy policies? We're really sleepwalking into a dystopia. If you don't like the privacy policy of your shopping mall, you're free to shop... online, where they get even more behavioral data on you. Yikes.
> shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals Indeed there's a huge glaring problem here: many of these malls have branded entrances (Shoppers Drug Mart, Best Buy, etc) through which a large portion of consumers walk into the mall, and these alleged decals are not present in those entrances. Here's an example [1]. Frankly I don't see said decals even in the non-branded entrances[2] They're going to have a…
The streetview images are dated may 2019, but the article says
>CF suspended its use of cameras back in 2018 [...]
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#17I'm wondering if just setting up a webcam in a public spot for a few years is enough these days to make a million bucks. I mean, don't you think that someone would buy a billion images of people walking about. It would be excellent for ML teams. LOL
No. There are many public webcams up already you can google and see right now, that content is free and not going away. What's missing is high def up-close cameras, which gets dicey w.r.t. privacy if you're making a profit off the content.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#18I think the courts have ruled that it is perfectly legal to record somebody outside of their home as that is considered public spaces. Many cities are now moving to embed cameras in street lights to deter and record crimes.
I think that it is safe to assume that if you are outside, you are being recorded, either by a check point camera , a store’s security camera , streetlight camera or even your neighbor’s ring device.
You should not have any expectation of privacy once you are outside the confines of your house.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#19I have talked to somebody working for this exact company before that was telling me about some of their project that they were working on. In addition to video images they also track people through their phones across stores to analyze shopping behaviour and fingerprint customers.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#20If this is all privately held data that can't be accessed without a warrant... why not? Just so I'm clear, the argument against this is: - Merchants should be able to hire humans that sit around looking at camera screens all day trying to find shopping patterns, shoplifters, etc. - Any attempt to automate this tedious task is dystopian and evil ?
Yes, because humans looking at camera screens will a) cost the company money, and also b) creates an incentive to the company to limit its observation to only the most necessary viewpoints.
Attempting to automate the task of constant observation makes constant observation easier, which isn't necessarily a desirable state.