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Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#331

Post by badestrand »

llampx wrote: post #274
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Never thought I'd read the "What have you got to hide?" argument on HN of all places. First of all, you're being disingenious by putting up a strawman argument about "how much milk and eggs you buy." It is never about only milk and eggs. Advertising is only a part of it. Once you have an ID required to shop there, you can easily track who was there. You can follow their movements around the shop with cameras once you…

> You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse.

I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access. There are already very strict data privacy laws in Europe and the trend is clearly towards even more strictness.

I, too, don't see any issue as long the as the laws punish misuse of private data.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#332

Post by matz1 »

akudha wrote: post #308
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Let me turn around and ask you - if you think this is not a problem, why don't you publish all your purchase info online? Along with where you bought them, what time, how etc? While you are at it, also publish your travel info - including mode of travel, time of travel, source, destination... I might be the boring-est person on the planet - lets say nothing about me is of any value to anyone. It is still nobody's bus…

>why don't you publish all your purchase info online? Along with where you bought them, what time, how etc? While you are at it, also publish your travel info - including mode of travel, time of travel, source, destination...

Yes I prefer that for everyone (not just me), including people in government, so that I don't have to worry about hiding the information. Hiding the information has its associated cost.

Transparency for everyone to level the playing field.

Sure its your business to be private but as times goes and as technology advances it going to be more difficult and expensive.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#333

Post by roody15 »

INTPenis wrote: post #265
JasonFruit wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks. At risk of sounding snarky, I'm growing in awareness that the anonymous nature of paper money and coin had a lot of advantages. I would be unhappy if the only option for groceries in my area required me to strongly identify myself to shop there.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Yes. Information absolutely can be used against you. Imagine if you perhaps decide to smoke... now the bank (and others). know this behavior and can calculate it into your overall credit score / health care score / behavior score.

You could use lots and lots of examples where market forces and banks could influence human behavior through this method. There is freedom and power in using cash.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#334

Post by dehrmann »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #36

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

I wonder how much of a concern shoplifting would be. The article says it's limited by knowing who's there and security cameras, but I also suspect it's kept in check by Swedish social norms.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#336

Post by okprod »

BoorishBears wrote: post #301
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Why don't you share with the workd your in-person purchases over the last year complete with location and time? It's just eggs and milk after all...

I don't agree with any information tracking, but should note that this type of collection, e.g., of shopping data, doesn't exactly mean the information will be leaked or used for nefarious purposes, etc. And, for many, they do share with the world what they're buying/many parts of their daily lives, just not by pushing a commit or updated a webpage; e.g., Twitter, Instagram, Snap.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#337

Post by lliamander »

INTPenis wrote: post #265
JasonFruit wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks. At risk of sounding snarky, I'm growing in awareness that the anonymous nature of paper money and coin had a lot of advantages. I would be unhappy if the only option for groceries in my area required me to strongly identify myself to shop there.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

The big worry in my mind is whether this tracking would be used to prevent you from buying milk and eggs in the first place.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#338

Post by rattray »

greensea wrote: post #316
cambaceres wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks. I don't agree. I'm a Swede too (as I assume you are), and I have basically never heard anyone complain of BankID being owned by the banks. I am really happy that our government does not own BankID, since they suck badly at developing software.

It is an issue that digital identification in Sweden is run by a single private company. The drawbacks are not clearly seen from a consumer standpoint, but they do charge service providers for each login, and can set their prices freely since it's a monopoly. They also have rules against being logged in for too long, and against identity transfer (directly or indirectly using BankID to authenticate for a different lo…

Those sound like good rules?

Are you sure they can set the prices "freely"? Many regulated monopolies like this are restricted in their pricing.

(disclaimer, not a swede)

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#339

Post by brabel »

JasonFruit wrote: post #279
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

For example, I'm disclosing my schedule: when I'm likely to be in a given neighborhood, at a certain store, or simply not at home. I'm disclosing my habits: do I buy alcohol frequently? Do I buy certain magazines? None of it is critical information, but I'm not only handing it out, I'm wrapping it up into a neat, searchable bundle for bulk analysis. And more importantly, there will soon be no easy way to opt out; any…

> I'm disclosing my habits: do I buy alcohol frequently?

Not in Sweden, because only state-run stores can sell alcohol (above 3.5% alcohol to be exact) - it's called Systembolaget and they already know exactly how much you drink!

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

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#340

Post by blueblisters »

tpmx wrote: post #306
dheera wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting is that this is not Amazon Go. Customers have to be honest and scan items. We're not civilized enough here in the US for such nice things.

I'm not so sure it's a matter of civilization - it's more a matter of infrastructure: The other piece of the puzzle is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Enforcement_Authority Basically the government runs debt collection in Sweden. They have the ability to withdraw money from your bank account. All of this is enabled by every resident having a (public) personal identity number.

Government run debt collection? Is this widely used by companies? Are there any drawbacks/cases of misuse? Does the government keep a credit score too?
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