Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

petapixel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 627 posts

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

#451

Post by advisedwang »

delichon wrote: post #3

The green box around his face in the image is evidence that it detected a face, but not that it had collected or stored identifying biometrics. It would be legal for a POS device to detect any face, e.g. to help decide when to reset for the next customer. But as I understand it, this would usually be enough to trigger discovery, where he could learn the necessary technical details. Even if this suit fails, the store…

How does one find out whether Home Depot is merely detecting faces or storing biometrics?

Answer: File a lawsuit and use discovery to find out.

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

#452

Post by FireBeyond »

respondo2134 wrote: post #358
benchly wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My observations (Canada, bigger city): The LP people you see (ie in "uniform") are often visible minorities, often women. They're positioned to remind you "we're watching!" not pursue any action. At best they'll call emergency services (a health event as common as theft). The covert LP people seem to be big, white, young males - the same type you see at popular gyms. They're still easy to spot because you see a young…

> the same type you see at popular gyms. They're still easy to spot because you see a young dude putting the oddest selection of products in their basket (always a basket) as the follow a "suspicious" person around

Hah, I was in JC Penney and I grabbed a handkerchief for a suit, and I packed it into my fist, to do a magic trick type thing. Went to find my fiancee, felt someone behind me. Except I looked back, and he hurriedly asked a sales associate some benign question about where to find X. I kept walking to my fiancee, who was looking at jewelry, and when I got there he ducked behind the counter, as if he worked there, and was poking at the register and talking to another sales associate. I pulled the handkerchief out of my closed fist, did some lame "ta da" thing to my fiancee, and dude looks disappointed and walks off, no longer pretending to be either an employee or customer.

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

#453

Post by bevhill »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #399
bevhill wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another example of the poor being punished harder. A desperate mother who steals repeatedly will reach felony levels and spend years in prison or face deportation, but a rich teen who steals for fun will stay below felony and get away Scott free.

Rich kid can also keep stealing and face felony. Don't defend stealing. Also if you're stealing as an immigrant, you should be deported without any questions asked.

WOW. Look, being in the country without "authorization" isn't even a crime. It's an administrative matter. Don't go implying that actions are somehow worse when someone who took the risk of moving to a new country does them as opposed to someone who won the birth lottery.

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

#454

Post by _will_ »

adamrezich wrote: post #420
MisterTea wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet bearded street person with big trash bag full of product makes them think of lovable Santa? They do not want to confront trash bag man for good reason. What happened is people who don't give a fuck and have no problem with using violence realized there's nothing stopping them from loading up bags of goods and walking out of the store. "Oh you want to stop me? just try mother fucker." Even so called security gua…

Maybe there was something to the high-trust society we once had. Perhaps it had something going for it that we lost when we decided to forsake it.

The high trust society is "gone" in many segments of society, but I don't see that we've made a decision to forsake it. Forsaking implies renouncing or turning away from it intentionally.

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

#455

Post by mattegan »

m463 wrote: post #41
theamk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increase deterrence effect to scare away shoplifters. Home depot goes out of the way to make its cameras visible. There is a large "camera" sign, bright light to catch your attention, a visible display to show it's not a fake, and sometimes even a motion activated chime. I assume the green square around the face is the next step in a game.

I hate the beeping cameras in the tools aisle and frequently stop browsing and leave also locked cabinets... cause me to not buy whatever is in them.

Came here hoping someone would mention those absolutely cursed cameras - the ones with the pre-canned video of a guy in a back office "monitoring" the feeds?

Gets to me the worst when I'm on my 3rd Home Depot trip of the day BEEP looking through a box of pipe fittings that is filled with everything _except_ the fitting matching the label on the box BEEP okay.. the Home Depot website says it's in stock at the one 20 minutes up the store BEEP but, that's what it said about BEEP the stock at this store so.. but hmm BEEP maybe I could combine these two other fittings and save a BEEP ... trip to the other store, okay I'll look here for... BEEP hmm, the two fittings I would need to combine also aren't in the right BEEP box, but... it looks like maybe there's some that someone put back into a BEEP different box? Oh, wait BEEP _none_ of these fittings are in their correct box? What!? BEEP

Sorry I've just never had anybody to talk with this about. I hate those things with a passion. Let me know if you'd like to start a support group.

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

#456

Post by delichon »

bevhill wrote: post #453
CrimsonRain wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich kid can also keep stealing and face felony. Don't defend stealing. Also if you're stealing as an immigrant, you should be deported without any questions asked.

WOW. Look, being in the country without "authorization" isn't even a crime. It's an administrative matter. Don't go implying that actions are somehow worse when someone who took the risk of moving to a new country does them as opposed to someone who won the birth lottery.

The act of entry without inspection is a misdemeanor crime under 8 U.S.C. § 1325. Repeat offenses can be felonies. It is just a civil violation if they have once entered with permission but lost it, e.g. a visa overstay or violation, adjustment denial, status expiration or revocation. So the Biden era catch-and-release rules created millions of such cases.

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

#457

Post by dkiebd »

bevhill wrote: post #448
dkiebd wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know how it is in the states but in most places in Europe using violence against a violent person is likely to end up very badly for you, even if you are a guard and have the necessary permits and training. You are not going to risk being fined or jailed to stop some criminal from shoplifting from a store that is not even yours.

Violence is okay to perpetrate, but not to respond with. A violent person will probably get it out of their system quickly. If you fight them, though, that creates a feedback loop that won't stop until someone is injured or dead. Just let people express themselves and everyone will be fine.

This mindset is what perpetually allows the violent to abuse the weak. What a violent person needs is a boot in the mouth. Or as many as necessary until he understands that’s not the way to behave. We are talking about people who generally have a low level of intelligence and do not understand anything else.

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

#458

Post by vel0city »

bevhill wrote: post #449
bee_rider wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a supermarket or department store is kinda “new-ish” (on some historical level), right? Like it is a post 1900 invention I think. Before this, most stores were full service. You go up to a merchant in the bazaar, or the grocer behind his stall, with a list, and they go into the inventory to grab the stuff for you. The innovation of having customers grab their own stuff without supervision was required for…

These exist in retail space now, but you can't go there. DashMarts are full-service general stores that delivery drivers stop at to pick up orders. It's like a ghost kitchen but for Dollar General. If they'd open up a "civilian" window then I'd visit every day.

The Best Buy near me is halfway there. They split their previous retail location in half. One half is still a walk-in retail store experience, but much smaller than before and more focused on being a showroom for the more expensive things and only a handful of accessories actually around on the floor. The other half is pretty much a warehouse. Outside, one set of doors is now dedicated to curbside pickup from the warehouse side. In between the doors to the showroom area and the curbside, it's a big set of automated lockers to pick up orders 24/7.

At a lot of the stores that offer it, the curbside pickup is hopping. Tons of associates constantly wheeling out cartloads of merchandise to an ever-rotating group of cars. More and more people opt for the curbside experience it seems, which is pretty much the full-service experience just more asynchronously. I do it from time to time, but typically not for grocery items as I usually don't like the experience of substitutions or the app saying they have something when they really don't.

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

#459

Post by CGMthrowaway »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #313

The trick is to shop at a high-shrinkage Home Depot where their self-checkout stations are all staffed by cashiers and you get concierge escort service whenever you purchase something locked in a cage.

I almost always prefer a staffed checkout vs. self checkout.

One time at the grocery store I watched a cashier clock out, shop for herself, then check out at the self checkout (!). I wonder if she recognized the irony.

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

#460

Post by CGMthrowaway »

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.

Self-checkouts are not the only place where facial recognition is used. Of course overhead cameras have long been present at actual staffed checkout counters. The new risk today is that every credit card POS device has a camera built into it as well. I go around and put little black stickers over them when I encounter them. These cameras are well-hidden and not disclosed at all.
Post reply on HN