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Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

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Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#281

Post by [deleted] »

munificent wrote: post #222
fennecfoxen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Don't be silly. The world was divided long before the Industrial Revolution, and if "labor" was ever on top of things, it was for fleeting moments. What changed with the Industrial Revolution was the collection of e…

For what it's worth, I didn't say the world was not divided before the industrial revolution. I just said what lines it became divided along after it. Before, because of the agricultural revolution, it was divided primarily along lines of land ownership and the familiar inheritance of that.

[deleted]

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#282

Post by derefr »

JohnFen wrote: post #233
derefr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans won’t detain anyone, but probably in the future there will be mechanistic countermeasures — e.g. the doors of the store just not opening for shoplifters (or at all, while shoplifters continue to be present — to prevent shoplifters from sneaking in ahead/behind a non-blacklisted customer.) Unmanned stores in the Amazon Go mould are already switching from turnstiles to airlock-style entryways; these can easily r…

> the doors of the store just not opening for shoplifters (or at all, while shoplifters continue to be present — to prevent shoplifters from sneaking in ahead/behind a non-blacklisted customer.) This is illegal in my state. And, I'm guessing, in most other US states as well.

Do you mean that denying entry is illegal, or denying exit is?

Because these unmanned stores do let you leave; they just have separate entry and exit doors, which have mutual-exclusion locking (like an airlock) such that nobody can enter the store through the exit door by getting someone inside the store to open the inner door. (You could slip into the little individual exit hall through the outer exit door; but the inner door in the little exit hall would remain locked until you left and it detected there were no longer people in the hall. Presuming a high-traffic store, this also wouldn't hold anything up, as other customers would continue to exit through the bank of other exit halls to either side of you.)

I haven't checked, but presumably pulling a fire alarm inside the store would disable all this security, flinging both the entry and exit doors open. But you can't reach the fire alarm in the exit hall; it's not "inside" the store. The only thing you can do in the exit hall, is exit (which you are always free to do.)

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#283

Post by colinmhayes »

JohnFen wrote: post #207
asciimov wrote: post #164

The October before covid me and Mrs. Asciimov went on a cruse with Royal Caribbean. We got dropped off at the port, put our luggage in the loading area, and proceeded to walk inside, all without talking to anyone. Not 30 seconds after walking into the Port Building, a RCL rep walked up and greeted me and the mrs by first name. Said please walk this way, I have you all checked in, you just need to go through the retur…

That would be the last time I went on an RCL cruise.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people like it.

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#284

Post by aaron695 »

Like the photo of LCD screens replacing supermarket fridge doors and Hacker News comments about how clever they where to know about glass, and missed the cameras that came with every door, exactly as the company intended.

That sort of thing?

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#285

Post by missedthecue »

norov wrote: post #151
opportune wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the idea of facial recognition tech being used like this but I really don’t mind loyalty cards/using credit cards to track spending as long as the data is only used by the stores themselves (and not also sold wholesale to the highest bidders, which I bet it is). I think it’s fair for them to gather analytics on spending habits and use it to make decisions on how to stock their store, run promotions, etc. Same…

No it's not really fair. Until I start seeing Kroger going out of their way to support data provacy initiatives and consumer protections, correctly assume they have ill intent with your data.

What is the worst that could happen if Kroger learns that I use my rewards card to purchase a loaf of wonderbread and other assorted groceries every week?

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#286

Post by missedthecue »

detaro wrote: post #98
jimmaswell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My answer is to not worry about it and be glad that these practices lower prices.

How do they lower prices?

If fewer people shoplift, the shrinkage rate lowers and grocery stores have more room to play with the price because their margin is wider. This is why inner city stores with higher shrinkage rates charge higher prices and why memberships stores like Costco which have almost no shoplifting losses at all can be so competitive.

If facial recognition is able to reduce theft, prices will likely be competed downwards over time.

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#287

Post by derefr »

pessimizer wrote: post #253
derefr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans won’t detain anyone, but probably in the future there will be mechanistic countermeasures — e.g. the doors of the store just not opening for shoplifters (or at all, while shoplifters continue to be present — to prevent shoplifters from sneaking in ahead/behind a non-blacklisted customer.) Unmanned stores in the Amazon Go mould are already switching from turnstiles to airlock-style entryways; these can easily r…

People might realize that comparing these systems to a prison isn't hyperbole when the doors won't open.

They don't lock you in. The point of an entry-access system is to gate entry, not exit.

To get in, you need to register a credit card. The store observes what you take, and charges that credit card for those items when you leave. If you're inside, you've necessarily given them everything they need to charge you asynchronously for everything you take while you're there. You can leave at any time.

The point of entry-access is to prevent people who don't have a registered active credit card from coming into the store, and so walking away with things that the store cannot then charge to anyone's account.

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#288

Post by legerdemain »

1MachineElf wrote: post #277
legerdemain wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why does it take the sales person at Macy's 15 minutes to look up my order before giving up and just giving me a refund for a poorly fitting sweater I brought back?

For Macy's, the 15 minutes you were forced to spend inside the store is a feature, not a bug.

That makes sense! It also takes several minutes just to get someone's attention at the makeup counter or to find a sales person to sell me a bath towel.

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#289

Post by 6510 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #198
fennecfoxen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Don't be silly. The world was divided long before the Industrial Revolution, and if "labor" was ever on top of things, it was for fleeting moments. What changed with the Industrial Revolution was the collection of e…

Very true. We are witnessing how a new aristocracy is being built. This time it’s not based on skills in warfare but around business skills. But the result is the same: you have a small group who thinks they are better than others and deserve to receive the vast majority of the profits society creates. And they manipulate the game to their advantage. This seems to happen in all societies until a revolution happens an…

We are going though iterations of societies/empires/cultures. Each round has the same issues but we get to learn from- and bring solutions from the previous one. The collective is much stronger than influential individuals but there has to be a collective will to change the game. It seems to me that we are more humanitarian than many previous cycles but I'm afraid we wont show much of an interest in [epic] game design until things get truly terrible. (Cheran pops to mind: That Mexican town of 16k that got rid of police, politicians and mobsters)

This time we did get game design down to an art with fine mechanics and cheap execution. Perhaps someone with a sharp pen can draw the parallels for us. Surely (if the will is there) it is easy to design something better than the stupid formula where we pretend Personal gain = Collective gain.

Re: Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

#290

Post by 6510 »

iso1210 wrote: post #272
munificent wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Those on the side of labor couldn't provide value without access to capital where it could be used. Conversely, those with capital need labor to extract value from it. The factories don't run themselves. In theory, th…

> At some point, we will hopefully have an "organized data movement" where people work together to be able to make effective demands about how their data can be harvested and used. We aren't there yet. The GDPR comes along, and HN hated it

That was just because they didn't read it.
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