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Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

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Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#81

Post by Ekaros »

cortesoft wrote: post #74
Ekaros wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like proper punishment is only way to get deterrent effect. Or the courts to do their job. So to me this sounds like workable way, stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.

Do you have ANY evidence that sending someone to jail for a few months to a few years sets people on a straight path? I am pretty sure the evidence shows the opposite.

So why we are even using it anymore? Why not then close down all the prisons? If there is no deterrent effect or rehabilitation effect. Wouldn't it be greater savings just to close it all down and let everyone out?

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#82

Post by novok »

AngryData wrote: post #51
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #40

Home Depot's self-checkouts are using this facial ID to build/maintain their shoplifting database — this tracks thefts by the same person across multiple visits, and is used over time to build up a case against errant self-checkout-ers (i.e. to get them above a theft threshhold, at which point prosecution becomes easier). There is also CCTV AI (whether artificial intelligence, or actually indians) which can intervene…

Im not sure we should allow such premeditated charge stacking, it is just further weaponizing the law and fueling our prison industrial complex for zero gain to society. Who is to say many of those people wouldn't have stopped after being caught and charged the first time? Imagine if cops sat on the side of the road not pulling people over, just recording minor traffic offenses in a file, and then a year or so later…

Or if your dealing with forgetful / tech confused old people. Now your putting 75 year olds in jail when a sooner alerting system would've made them notice if they were not using it correctly.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#83

Post by pastage »

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #72
Ekaros wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Stealing from Home Depot doesn’t make you a “sociopathic criminal”. It’s shoplifting, not murder. Besides, people who are stealing building supplies are probably doing it because they’re hard up for money and trying to make more on whatever jobs they have. They’re not stealing some random superfluous consumer goods, they’re just broke and trying to make a little more money. It’s really not that hard to understand - u…

> white collar Silicon Valley bubble

This is not helping. You should not make up an enemy that does not exist.

There are many otherwise "sane" people that like punishment, many of these people are the ones that has led a life of struggle. Go back to the reason of an eye for an eye, it is compelling even if it has been disproven.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#84

Post by seany »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #34
beaviskhan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use them when it's an option - but Home Depot in particular often has zero actual cashiers. They've always got a couple people standing around in self checkout to assist when the system (inevitably?) doesn't work properly, though...

HD has really good self checkouts though. They don't require any interaction with the touch screen except hitting "Done", nor do they have over-sensitive anti-theft scale systems. It's just a wireless barcode scanner on a table with a receipt printer and a payment terminal. The screen shows everything you've scanned with pictures! and legible product descriptions, which makes it really easy to make sure you scanned e…

When they were first rolled out you had to weigh everything or get a person to come over _per item_ ... It was total Insanity.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#85

Post by seany »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #63
ethagnawl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt that you've experienced all of the above but I'd hazard that it's the exception and not the rule. Personally, I'm faster at scanning items than most cashiers are. I used to work in retail, though, so maybe that's just me. I haven't ever experienced a receipt check while using self-checkout. If I did, I'd stop visiting that store. That's a bright red line for me. To my partner's chagrin, it's one of th…

> I haven't ever experienced a receipt check while using self-checkout. If I did, I'd stop visiting that store. That's a bright red line for me. Not self checkout related, but the Kroger stores by me have all started having security guards check receipts before you can leave the store. They do this whether or not you do self checkout. Accordingly, I have stopped patronizing those stores because I refuse to spend my m…

Not sure what state you're in, but in most places you can just walk by then with zero legal issues (excluding contractual obligations like costco)

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#86

Post by deathanatos »

bgwalter wrote: post #16
richwater wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> slower than the cashier...Often there is a supervisor breathing down your neck Not sure what stores you're going to go but this is nowhere near my experience.

You scan faster than a trained cashier? Do the self-checkouts in the US use RFID? Here in the EU I have to scan, clumsily and slowly.

Even a trained cashier cannot scan as fast as a trained cashier on these systems; they're slow by design. I got reasonably fast (but not cashier fast) on Safeway's and hit a wall: I kept running into false positive "unidentified item in bagging area", followed by clerk overrides. I eventually figured out that you can't place the item into the bagging area until the computer has processed it — there's a delay between the "beep" of the barcode scanner recognizing a barcode and the computer adding the item to the tab & then announcing the purchase, and you cannot hit the scale prior to that or it gets out of sync with you.

Also the only place truly training cashiers, AFAICT, is Aldi's.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#87

Post by UltraSane »

JohnFen wrote: post #9

I have developed an extreme distrust of self-checkout systems generally, in part because of the risk of this sort of thing. As a result, I simply don't use them at all anymore.

I exclusively use self-checkout because the lines move faster because one line feeds multiple self-checkouts vs each regular checkout having its own line. This leads to head of line blocking from very customers with a lot more items than you.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#88

Post by UltraSane »

seany wrote: post #84
frosted-flakes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HD has really good self checkouts though. They don't require any interaction with the touch screen except hitting "Done", nor do they have over-sensitive anti-theft scale systems. It's just a wireless barcode scanner on a table with a receipt printer and a payment terminal. The screen shows everything you've scanned with pictures! and legible product descriptions, which makes it really easy to make sure you scanned e…

When they were first rolled out you had to weigh everything or get a person to come over _per item_ ... It was total Insanity.

Target and Aldi don't use a scale. Costco does, but I bet it works better for Costco because they carry much less items so weights are more unique?

HyVee actually removed all self-checkouts. This sucks because they had awesome self-checkouts with conveyor belts.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#89

Post by UltraSane »

neuralRiot wrote: post #36
c22 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I am being abused by a faceless corporation I simply withdraw my business entirely and direct my capital towards a competitor. Sometimes this is very inconvenient for me, but change has to start somewhere, right?

Exactly this, last time I went to HD I had a cart with maybe 20 items, NONE of the working self-checkouts accepted cash so I just walked out with empty hands. Now I decided that if a place doesn’t have human cashiers I just don’t shop there and give priority to small stores, I might pay more but at least I know the profits are for a neighbor.

I have not used cash in years. My Citi doublecash card gets 2% cashback.

Re: Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts

#90

Post by stephen_g »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #40

Home Depot's self-checkouts are using this facial ID to build/maintain their shoplifting database — this tracks thefts by the same person across multiple visits, and is used over time to build up a case against errant self-checkout-ers (i.e. to get them above a theft threshhold, at which point prosecution becomes easier). There is also CCTV AI (whether artificial intelligence, or actually indians) which can intervene…

I've noticed at supermarkets here that of the dozens of times those 'you haven't scanned something' warnings have come up, only one time the item hadn't actually scanned when I thought it had. Every other time has been a false positive for me. They're pretty dodgy, the workers always seem pretty frustrated with it as they go around clearing them for people (sometimes a handful of people waiting, falsely accused by the machines)...
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