I wonder what makes anyone in charge think that such a practice could possibly be welcomed by the affected shoppers?
Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
151–160 of 184 posts
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#152If 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…
You haven’t actually articulated any harm here - the “dangerous” actions that could potentially happen with the aid of aggregated data, like blackmail or stalking, are already illegal.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if we make it illegal for the mall to have security cameras then the NSA will stop spying on people?
No, you make the data collection illegal and with liability like it appears Canada already did hence why this company is in trouble with regulators. Data should be legally made in to toxic waste we all know it should be treated as.
> Data should be legally made in to toxic waste we all know it should be treated as.
The vast majority of people do not care about privacy though, at least not to the extent that “tech” people seem to.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#154I don’t see the actual harm here. Malls have operated security cameras for decades. These people added a facial recognition system to generate population statistics (age, gender) and track anonymous individuals as they move around the mall. So what? Who was harmed? Who could be harmed?
Now what if they decide to link that data up with driver license photos or social media data to de-anonymize as many people as they can. Would you still say there's no actual harm here?
To do what with, though? Use it to blackmail you? Use it to track you down and murder you? That’s harm - collecting and analyzing data is not.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#155Who cares?
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#156>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.
We're really sleepwalking into a dystopia.
Maybe some, but most people are aware. They have very little to zero power to fight back the abuse.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#157There 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.
I recall a youtuber Surveillance Camera Man, when he filmed people in public they seemed to get angry about his actions. To me this says people de facto expect privacy in public spaces.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#158>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…
Even if there were large signs, people would just not care.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#159I don't have a problem with this. Most ppl don't know this but there are ppl who make a living harassing other ppl in malls or abusing associative learning to give ppl positive or negative feelings about where they are shopping. They use actual "models" if you want to call it that to influence your decision making everywhere you go. It's actually highly targeted and dangerously accurate.
Do you have more details about this? Honestly it sounds like paranoid delusions. However, I could see using good-looking models playing fake customer for influencing high net worth individual to spend more. It might make financial sense in a high price, high margin business like a jewelry store. I also heard anecdotal reports of paying homeless people to hang out in front of a competitor's business to scare away customers.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#160If 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 ?
In scenario 1, getting a warrant doesn't do a whole lot of good.
In scenario 2, if the technology is widespread, police can be searching all stores records country wide within minutes.