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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

#141

Post by conductr »

legitster wrote: post #10

My understanding of these systems is that the green box just detects a face to a) make it easier to scan hours of footage later looking for faces b) add a subtle intimidation factor against crime. Is a picture of a face count as "biometric" information? I strongly doubt it and suspect this case will be thrown out.

I highly doubt they stopped there. If they're doing that already, they're taking the time/expense to scan hours of footage later and they would absolutely go further and assign each face a risk score based on what they think happened during your visits. They will flag you next time so the LP person can know to watch you closer in real time. I personally don't think they are sitting on evidence to charge you with a bigger crime later like some comments suggest, but I do think they would like to know which of the 10 busy self-checkout registers are most important to watch in real time at any given moment.

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

#142

Post by boobsbr »

gblargg wrote: post #103
idiotsecant wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also wish that elevators would go back to having attendants that drive you to your floor? When a job doesn't need people, keeping a person there is not some kind of noble gesture. It's annoying.

Or those backward states where you must let the gas station attendant pump your gas.

There are whole countries like that.

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

#143

Post by pcthrowaway »

rapnie wrote: post #117
neilv wrote: post #76

I'm pretty sick of misguided/enthusiastic Loss Prevention people, and these digital systems amplify their hijinks. The most conspicuous one recently was at one upscale grocery chain within the last year. There was what I took to be a dedicated LP person who seemed to be lurking behind the self-checkouts, to watch me specifically, and I stood there until he went away. Then, as I was checking out, this employee came up…

Some time ago I had a mild case of cerebral palsy, enough to slightly distort my facial features. And sure enough that made the AI flag me frequently for 'grocery frisking' by suspicious personnel in the supermarket where I am regular customer for years. That means nothing anymore. The supermarket is a factory, and you are a shopping trolley, a wallet, and a potential thief.

I'm assuming you mean Bells Palsy, not Cerebral Palsy.

I haven't heard of a short-term Cerebral Palsy, but then again I'm not an expert.

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

#144

Post by bell-cot »

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.

Similar here. If you want me to deal with your dystopian self-checkout, how about you pay me?

(Conveniently, I live in a large-enough city for there to be plenty of other options. Including small or high-touch stores, which do not have self-checkout.)

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

#145

Post by 4ggr0 »

benchly wrote: post #139
neilv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less relevant, but reminds me of my all-time favorite grocery store LP encounter, near MIT. The chain was running this big promotion with lots of tear-open prize tickets that are either coupons or game board pieces, so I had been visiting often, to buy ramen noodles (one ticket per package!) and I had a small stack of coupons in my wallet. I was checking my coupons for this visit in the middle of a center aisle, and…

Appreciate the story, but what's the hangup about naming these companies? It's not really a secret that retail LP generally abuses their role across the board and allows prejudace to run rampant in its ranks, giving that it is almost entirely comprised of people from backgrounds that lack any higher education and recieved a few months training at best to do what they do. Heck, step in any active American mall and you…

> I was repeatedly told to target black women

not that i'm that surprised, but still shocking to read such things in 2025.

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

#146

Post by TillE »

redserk wrote: post #18
bgwalter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one used the self-checkouts there would be 15 cashiers.

There is no evidence anecdotal or otherwise to back this assertion. Many stores near me appeared to cut cashiers before they added self-checkouts. If anything, adding self-checkouts increased the number of available options to get out of the store faster. I'd place my bets on curbside pickup getting pushed more before cashiers get added given how popular it's become as an option.

Germany's discounters (ie, nearly all grocery stores) have long been hyper-efficient about checkouts. There is exactly one lane open until the line gets too long, then they open another. When the number of customers subsides, the second lane closes and the employee goes back to other tasks.

Only in recent years have self-checkouts started appearing in any significant number, and the formula hasn't changed. I guess theoretically stores might be able to cut back on employees, but it would be literally one or two people at most.

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

#147

Post by fluoridation »

bmn__ wrote: post #127
fluoridation wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are we talking about minimizing theft or maximizing justifiable human suffering?

If the state fails to punish a criminal, the suffering is externalised to the rest of society. How is that fair? Why should the moral people put up with that?

If the company chooses to allow the thefts to continue unimpeded, why should it be anyone else's problem? Like, if someone walks into your home, picks up some items from your shelf, makes eye contact with you, and walks off, and you let them keep doing that over time, at some point you're just consenting to it. I think if you tried to sue them after they stole some arbitrary threshold, a judge would be right to ask why you didn't say anything at all, not even a simple "hey, stop that".

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

#148

Post by 4ggr0 »

anewonenow wrote: post #68
fluoridation wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the store is going to be tracking this information, it could just as easily show a message to the offender. "Hey, we're on to you. Knock it off, or else." Going straight for the jugular is just rude.

How about stealing is just rude. Theft is terrible. Trying to justify stealing power tools “bec it’s a big corporation” further degrades society and creates a dishonest low-trust culture. I live in Illinois and look forward to collecting my $2k check for this but the reality is that the only person to blame for the theft is the person committing the theft. The same way we don’t blame women for how they dress or just…

> stealing is just rude. Theft is terrible.

you, I, and probably most people on HN have the privilege of seeing it this way. for others, it's sometimes not a moral question, but a question of survival or at least dignity.

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

#149

Post by closewith »

bmn__ wrote: post #120
neilv wrote: post #76

I'm pretty sick of misguided/enthusiastic Loss Prevention people, and these digital systems amplify their hijinks. The most conspicuous one recently was at one upscale grocery chain within the last year. There was what I took to be a dedicated LP person who seemed to be lurking behind the self-checkouts, to watch me specifically, and I stood there until he went away. Then, as I was checking out, this employee came up…

[flagged]

> Put the criminals in prison. Do it often enough, and shoplifting ceases to be a problem of plague-like proportions. Big fan of accountability and immediate personal consequences and enforcing the law.

This just doesn't work. A high-trust society cannot be built by force.

> I am fatigued of the suicidal and deleterious empathy of those in charge who refuse to take second-order effects into account.

The irony here is palpable. An increasingly desperate poverty class with no hope of social mobility has many second-order effects, and none of them can be policed out of existence.

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

#150

Post by AidenVennis »

47282847 wrote: post #92

I make it a point not to use self-checkout systems because I want to support human interaction even if basic, and contribute to jobs for humans. And cash (most self-checkouts here are card-only). I understand it’s a losing battle on all fronts.

Not sure if this is the same for the USA, but worker shortage is the main reason why self-checkout became popular here in Europe at least. Aging population, very low birthrate and higher educated people all contributed to this problem (although not for all countries in the EU).
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