Yay, more big brother type stuff, I'm telling you it will come and most of us won't even notice.
Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
161–170 of 184 posts
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In Canada, do you even really have a right to privacy when in public spaces like a shopping mall? Yes, you do, because while a shopping mall might be considered a "public space," it is private property owned by a private organization. In Canada the PIPEDA [1] covers this federally, though the law is written such that it is a backstop, and provinces are free to enact their own "substantially similar" (or stricter) l…
Personal information under these laws are defined as: age, name, ID numbers, income, ethnic origin, or blood type; opinions, evaluations, comments, social status, or disciplinary actions; and employee files, credit records, loan records, medical records, existence of a dispute between a consumer and a merchant, intentions (for example, to acquire goods or services, or change jobs). How does video of people passing by…
Just to be clear (because the article isn't), what CF did was install a bunch of computerized kiosks to replace the information map kiosks, then when anyone used those kiosks (peering at screen from 2 feet away, tapping at it), a hidden camera (no external indication that there's a camera behind the black glass screen) recorded their face and what store they were looking for. This was intentional to collect and store info about individual mall users.
It wasn't some security camera overlooking the concourse from 30 feet up or anything like that.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#163[deleted]
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#164Earlier 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…
Any consent that isn't explicit should have no legal value. A "decal" on a door is about as useful as a size 2 font fine print, or an audio disclaimer played back at 5 times the speed.
This implicit agreement can be used to obtain quite literally anything without the other party ever knowing.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#165Earlier 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.
Disclaimer: IANAL, caveat lector. Taking the argument at face value is probably not the right conclusion [1]. The linked court case establishes what we would call in American law Informed Consent. If you can't read disclaimer at the door until you are in camera range, is that really informed consent? And if the disclaimer does not actually list the policy in question, but refers you to a website to read it, can it be…
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Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#166I work in FR, and this is everywhere. Malls and retail establishments of any and all kinds are contacting us and requesting FR for analysis of their shoppers. Police and campus security too. They want to create a tracking system very similar to cookies on the web, but for physical spaces.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#167What's interesting to me about this is how people focus on the 'collection' aspect. But the collection of digital video of people in public spaces with minor (at best) notification (e.g. "smile you're on camera" stickers) has been going on for decades. There's nothing new there at all. So purely from the perspective of collecting data, it seems to me to be well within the purview of established commercial behavior, w…
Other than those in the industry, like me, you're the only person in these comments astute enough to realize this.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#168I could not be happier that wearing a mask is more or less societally acceptable now.
I was curious if the value of the facial recognition startups is at risk with masks becoming more prevalent. Wouldn't be surprised if they are lobbying against mask mandates and mask enforcement as their entire business model must be at risk.
Any enterprise class FR was already doing face masks before the pandemic. I know the FR I work on worked fine before with masks, and now with enhancements much better.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, if the worry is about a corrupt and hostile government, I fail to see what making it illegal accomplishes. Who do you think the regulators are? Yes, regulation is great with a just and fair government. If the government can't be trusted, then neither can the regulations. If we can't trust the government, then we need to replace it with one we can trust.
This is not a binary thing. It is not "the government is corrupt, therefore all is pointless". Instead, there are scenarios such as: - the government is comprised of people, running different departments - those people seem to think they are doing things for the common good - courts determine otherwise, and point to laws passed by legislative bodies as validation - activity stops "Spy agencies", and "policing agencie…
This. Truth.
Re: Mall real estate company collected 5M images of shoppers
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Exactly. It's the industrial scale collection, storage, analysis, and sharing of data that becomes a problem. I don't care of Joe Smith the security guard sees me pick my nose or scratch my ass when they're watching security cameras because it's not noteworthy to them and they're not going to recognize me or remember it. However, I do care if the cameras are feeding into a huge system for analytics and data sharing.…
The answer to all of these questions is: if there is money to be made on siphoning off some data here or there, someone will invent a way to do it. Sometimes silent, sometimes brazen. Usually silent though.