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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

#311

Post by HWR_14 »

kevinsundar wrote: post #255
HWR_14 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But the only reason they need to identify what is a face in the camera is as a step in facial recognition. It's not like the security cameras are adjusting their focus or exposure.

Its just security theater as a theft deterrent. The idea is that if you see a screen with a green box around your face then you believe that they've got a good look at you and if you steal then they can use the images. Walmart isn't investing money building networked cameras with the processing ability to perform facial recognition at scale in real time. It'd probably cost more money than paying employees to just wat…

It's entirely possible that they are only pretending to do facial recognition as theft deterrent.

They could also be recording the video and doing the facial recognition offline - the analytics aren't valuable in realtime.

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

#312

Post by fuihggyfdd »

reedjosh wrote: post #131

This to me is part of a general trend wherein only those with the awareness and resources required will have privacy. For example, if you do have the funds, send a private shopper. But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. This will further entrench the class divide between the wealthy and the rest of us.

I don't see the inherent dilemma without establishing the impact towards quality of life. The price of yachts also entrenches this same divide but I hardly care since my access to yahts isn't a big concern. In the same manner, the only people whose QoL suffers from this sort of disparity seems to be activists and the people who buy into their fearmongering. Where's the real damage?

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

#313

Post by derefr »

MichaelGroves wrote: post #96
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…

I recently saw a viral video of a seagull shoplifting a bag of chips. The automatic doors didn't open for the seagull, so the bird just waited until a permitted human approached the door. A "mantrap" entrance ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantrap_(access_control) ) could solve this, but I think many stores don't have the space for it. That 7-11 doesn't. Also, neither the cops nor the towing company will show up in…

Thank you; a mantrap was exactly what I was trying to describe in my other comments, but didn't know the word for it.

It's not true that a 7-11 doesn't have room for a mantrap; remember that an unmanned store doesn't have a cash register / checkout counter, or any space behind such for a person to stand. A manned store could be retrofitted into a secure unmanned store by installing the mantrap entrance into exactly that area.

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

#314

Post by madeofpalk »

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.

Is it? That's 15 minutes of a customer not spending money, and 15 minutes of a staff person dedicated to giving back money to a customer, rather than generating more revenue.

I get that its considered a feature to get them into a store, but surely you don't want to optimise for associates not selling things?

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

#315

Post by black_puppydog »

Seems weird this wouldn't really be discussed, but this also means that aggressively publicizing this simple fact, and lobbying for very obvious consent & information obligations, might be enough to reign in these practices.

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

#316

Post by tootie »

_wldu wrote: post #20

Walmart makes this rather obvious. I was walking down a medicine aisle the other day, and I looked up and saw my face on a screen with green lines outlining it.

I wonder how pervasive this actually is. I've worked a bit in retail technology and we put some sensors in live stores. Tracking dwell time and pings of wifi access points. They generated a ton of noise and almost zero actionable data. Every attempt failed to be deployed to a second store. We had some success with facial recognition but only in really funneled spaces where we could get a customer to look at a camera on purpose. And it was still only about 90% accurate.

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

#317

Post by fouc »

hn8788 wrote: post #93
karmakaze wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that seems like they don't want you to steal at their store by giving deterrent cues. Which parts were practically inconvenient, or slow you down?

It just makes for a shitty experience. I grew up in a blue-collar family and still dress that way, even though I'm firmly upper-middle class now. I took my wife to a high end mall for a her birthday one year, and when we were looking at designer purses, the security in the store followed us the entire time, presumably because their typical customers don't wear jeans, tshirts, and sneakers. We noticed the security in…

Except plently of people do wear jeans, tshirts, and sneakers. And probably don't get scrutinized like that. I would consider other factors like cleanliness/neatness, grooming, haircut style, watch & phone styles, etc.

The difference between a mullet and stains on your shirt versus a nice haircut and an apple watch on your wrist.

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

#318

Post by Sharlin »

unstatedAnswers wrote: post #275
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?

Customer support is a cost center, so it gets less funding than sales/marketing-oriented projects (route-optimizing here likely has the intention of boosting sales, not necessarily reducing customer shopping time)

Yes. There’s a reason some of the most often needed groceries are almost always at the back of a supermarket.

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

#319

Post by vineyardmike »

GuB-42 wrote: post #193
reedjosh wrote: post #131

This to me is part of a general trend wherein only those with the awareness and resources required will have privacy. For example, if you do have the funds, send a private shopper. But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. This will further entrench the class divide between the wealthy and the rest of us.

This may actually close the class divide a little. The thing with privacy is the more wealthy you are, the more valuable it is. For example, if I want to sell something, I will want to target the wealthiest first. Same thing for scammers, and newspapers will follow celebrities. Who care about the poor, there is no money to extract from them. So let's get back to the private shopper. A rich and famous man will want to…

> The amount of privacy a rich man will get by paying $1000, a poor man can get it for $1

No, privacy is not autographs. Thats not how this works.

The rich man is paying a private shopper to use the PS's face in the facial recognition system and card tracking system. the PS gets the ads, but not the rich man. The rich man's habits are still tracked (by proxy, assuming PS doesn't shop personally at same store). At best, the rich man gets his habits co-mingled with PS to get slightly higher anonymity.

> The same can be said for loyalty cards. The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others.

Hmm makes sense at face level, but why would stores offer discounts to their worst customers? My credit card offers discount to those who spend 10k+ on private jets presumably because those people outspend enough to justify the cost

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

#320

Post by vineyardmike »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #172
cronix wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store.

I bet if I asked the people I know (many who earn enough to not need the discounts) if they would rather spend 1% less on their groceries and let go of their grocery purchase data, or if they would spend 1% more and keep their purchase history private, almost everyone would choose to voluntarily give it up and spend 1% less.

Now imagine if that number is 5%+ -> i'm sure many many people would give it up!
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