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Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

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Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#91

Post by lhorie »

black_puppydog wrote: post #84
lhorie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Sorry but if you're taking their argument at face value that decals might be the way to go here and everything would be fine if only they were there, then they've basically won. Don't get side tracked.

My take is that the claim that "shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals" fails on multiple levels: whether said decals were actually there, whether they would be capable of capturing nuances of scope if they were (e.g. there's different expectations between a mall entrance, the Shoppers entrance and the LCBO entrance), whether people noticed the alleged decals if they were there, whether they could be reasonably expect to understand it (e.g. non-english speakers), whether people could infer that legalese existed if they did understand it, whether they were capable of understanding the actual terms (e.g. tech illiterates), whether it is reasonable to expect that people would consciously agree to whatever terms are laid out in the legalese, whether all people captured by face recognition necessarily were actually aware of the terms, etc. It just doesn't stick on so many levels.

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#92

Post by msla »

texasbigdata wrote: post #64
gravitas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s crazy that their lawyers think that merely referring to a privacy policy via a decal on the door is adequate acceptance of this kind of intrusion Very abstractly, legal precedent exists for the general implementation. Texas has what's called "the 30.07 sign" codified in the penal code (30.06 concealed, 30.07 open carry)[1] which prohibits firearm carry on that property with nothing more than a proper/legal sig…

Interesting example. Not super familiar but that’s a licensed activity right? As in there’s some training and/or test administered upon gun purchase? Sorry if that’s not the case. But that feels marginally different because if you had a handgun and you knew this door sign governed whether or not you could bring it into a premise, you would look out for it. No one is staring at the door of the drug store, because we a…

Yes, it's licensed. There's a class and a proficiency demonstration:

https://onlinetexasltc.com/texas-concealed-carry/

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#93

Post by black_puppydog »

lhorie wrote: post #91
black_puppydog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but if you're taking their argument at face value that decals might be the way to go here and everything would be fine if only they were there, then they've basically won. Don't get side tracked.

My take is that the claim that "shoppers were made aware of the activity through decals" fails on multiple levels: whether said decals were actually there, whether they would be capable of capturing nuances of scope if they were (e.g. there's different expectations between a mall entrance, the Shoppers entrance and the LCBO entrance), whether people noticed the alleged decals if they were there, whether they could be…

In that case I think we're in agreement. :)

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#94

Post by spinach »

ab_testing wrote: post #18

I 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 devi…

What about bathrooms, changing rooms, hotel rooms, etc? No expectation for privacy since you aren't at home?

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#95

Post by DLA »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #29
DLA wrote: post #23

There is no expectation of privacy in public places in the US. Not sure of Canada has the same norm. Now that said just because you can collect data does not mean should should--there's a wide range for good and evil here.

We are forgetting that until very recently storage was so expensive that there was an expectation of forgetting. This should be talked about more because it changes the picture dramatically.

That's a fantastic point you raise. It's dirt cheap to collect (IoT devices, drones, Digital Globe and the like) and very inexpensive to store data in volumes that were once the only viable for governments or well-funded and motivated private entities (e.g. hedge funds). That opens the door to a radically different set of possibilities.

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#96

Post by sida »

spinach wrote: post #94
ab_testing wrote: post #18

I 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 devi…

What about bathrooms, changing rooms, hotel rooms, etc? No expectation for privacy since you aren't at home?

OP's argument would be that bathrooms, changing rooms, hotel rooms are examples of places with expectation of privacy.

And if you are walking in the middle of a mall with lots of people around you, that would be an example where there is no expectation of privacy.

-- OP argument put more simply, if you are in a bathroom, everyone expects that that is private. In fact bathrooms have doors and urinals have privacy screens. If you are taking your clothes off, a reasonable person expects to be private

Whereas, in the middle of the mall where there are tons of people, there are surveillance cameras, and other people taking pictures of each other. That would be somewhere with no expectation of privacy

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#98

Post by donmcronald »

coding123 wrote: post #12

I'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

I was actually wondering about the same thing. I don't think you could make $1 million, but if you live on the end of a feeder street I bet there's a chance you could eventually get paid to point a couple cameras at the street.

With the way most modern neighborhoods are designed it would take very few cameras on private property to capture everyone going in/out.

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#99

Post by blato »

ab_testing wrote: post #18

I 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 devi…

This "_you should not have any expectations of privacy in public_" argument dates back when there was no facial recognition.

The idea was people can see you in the street, maybe exceptionally a wierdo would take a photo of you but nobody could find your identity back from that photo. In case of a crime in the street the police could exceptionally access surveillance cameras to investigate. That's it.

This is what "no privacy in public" meant in 2000/2010, and I was totally fine with that. I was totally pro video surveillance at that time .

Now we're in 2020 and facial recognition is happening. Everything changes.

Today, taking the picture of someone = taking biometric data like fingerprint or DNA. This allows you to have a total control over that person. Law were made at a time when a cameras were not such devastating weapons.

Everywhere you go, everything you eat, each item in the store you look at, each person you look at, heartbeat & stress level, which house you're at, who are you talking to, what did you bought, when, with who, what ads did you watch in the street, which part if the ads, with which emotion, we can find your identity, social posts, private data, health data, intimate message, browsing history, emotions, stress level, etc just by pointing a camera at you because of facial recognition. All this is anaylzed, sold and stored forever.

We're getting in a dystopia the worst case-scenario dystopic sci-fi movie couldn't even imagine and people are like "nah we shouldn't expect privacy anyway ya know"...

Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers

#100

Post by stickfigure »

oehpr wrote: post #54
umvi wrote: post #15

If 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 ?

A piece of data on its own is usually pretty harmless, a gigantic database that is organized, categorized, and distributed, is potentially very harmful. And it's a smooth gradient between them. An example of data that is harmless on its own but harmful at scale is license plate reading. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/we-know-where-yo... a few points tells you that a person is in a city, a few more tells…

Do you use a credit card? Why are you so upset about this dataset but not that dataset?

Honest question.

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