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Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

nytimes.com

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Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#51

Post by Brian_K_White »

geodel wrote: post #36
moolcool wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't conflicting, it's just shit. This has no place in a free society, and I have zero time for any arguments to the contrary. Technology has all the promise in the world to improve and enrich our lives, but instead it's turning our world into a digital panopticon where we're constantly tracked and targeted. I'll bet you any money that this tech is going to be used for advertising as well, if it isn't already.

Yeah, society is not really free until it gives free grocery supplies to every one.

I can't tell if you mean that, but there is actually a strong argument for it, even while to some people it sounds like a hilarious joke.

Since we have machines and mass production an knowledge of biology and soil and weather etc, the resources it takes to provide at least staple food are now very little per person compared to history.

I would LOVE it if part of my taxes were used for free food for all.

Instead, we're all paying an extra 2.5 to 3% tax on every single transaction in our lives to the credit card companies. Now that's a hilarous joke.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#52

Post by armchairhacker »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #9

This is conflicting, on one hand it's certainty within the right of a store to bar people who shoplift, it's really an imperative to do so. The petty crime issue the retailers here are trying to counter is a real one. But this application it feels like falling down an increasingly slippery slope. Sure, today, it's just "send an alert and the store can do what it wants" but how long until that transforms into a de fac…

I think that stores would be far more willing to remove facial recognition if there was a guarantee, a social contract, that shoplifter = police on the scene immediately = arrest = minimum 30 days imprisonment regardless of object size, without bail, sentence time increases by 30 days for each repeat offense within the last three years. Problem solved; we can focus on community programs to reduce the desire to shopli…

This won't work because lots of people accidentally forget to scan things, and any arrest for that is ridiculous. Also, single parents or desperate people stealing bare essentials should not be put in jail.

Actual police response and penalties for theft which is clearly unwarranted (e.g. theft of makeup, electronics, and other non-essentials), especially organized theft, would be great. I don't think stores are losing money on people taking individual loaves of bread and formula, and those can and should just be ignored. But everything else I don't see anyone defending.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#53

Post by Simulacra »

gumby wrote: post #21
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #9

This is conflicting, on one hand it's certainty within the right of a store to bar people who shoplift, it's really an imperative to do so. The petty crime issue the retailers here are trying to counter is a real one. But this application it feels like falling down an increasingly slippery slope. Sure, today, it's just "send an alert and the store can do what it wants" but how long until that transforms into a de fac…

> I can easily see a system like this ending up like credit rating bureaus with a few large companies aggregating data into a score which stores can use to deny entry. I'm sure the big three credit bureaux are developing precisely this product. The stores need not even ban you: they could adjust their prices on a per customer basis to cover their expected risk. Come to think of it, the insurance companies could get i…

You might be interested in a book from long ago called No Place to Hide by O'Harrow. In 2004 he discussed Target, Home Depot, and shopping malls using mobile phone identification to collect and classify customers. This is just the next logical step. I would be very surprised if major retailers are not already using facial recognition software.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#54

Post by yieldcrv »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #37
yieldcrv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people can get groceries delivered, you dont need a home just a waypoint, or deliver to a nearby address and wait for the delivery driver. I do it all the time. And yes, my comment specifically factored in food deserts, everything about a higher cost of going to places with food factored in everything you thought of and was written specifically for your rebuttals.

Ah yes, just have the homeless pay a $9.99 delivery fee, plus tip, plus an app service charge, plus inflated pricing in the app. Rather than just walking into the store and buying it themselves. So now that $0.99 packet of ramen now costs, at a minimum, $10.99.

yep, I was pretty clear about that being a tolerable outcome of being barred from grocery stores from prior behavior

as long as there is that alternative as opposed to no alternative

(and as long as the accusations was accurate)

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#55

Post by fsckboy »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #48

Something that I think many people really underestimate is how much crime is done by how few people. It’s incredibly concentrated. We may have this image of a normal person perhaps down on their luck and tempted by circumstances and while this is true of most criminals , it is not true of the perpetrators of most crimes . For example, according to this article in the NYT ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/…

> top 327 shoplifters in NYC last year were arrested more than 6000 times

so, what they mean is (get it? "the mean is" :) 6000 / 327 = 18+ arrests each

not arguing against the argument being made, but refocusing it with a "broken windows theory" style argument, if so much mayhem can be caused by such a small number of people, I think when the shoplifting problem is allowed to go unchecked, friends of the shoplifters join in for a very small increase in the number of people, but a big increase in the mayhem.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#56

Post by crummy »

josephcsible wrote: post #15

I wish we could get rid of this system by getting rid of the demand for it. Stores wouldn't need things like this if career shoplifters got sent to prison.

The article mentions many of these shoplifters are stealing things like nappies. Sending them to prison might mean the state has to take care of the kids.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#57

Post by ericd »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #18
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's gone berserk since the pandemic. CVS claims they have had a 300% increase. https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2022/why-has-shopl... https://www.axios.com/2022/02/11/shoplifting-retail-crisis-o...

And other data points say the opposite: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-s... "In a major shift, Walgreens, which said it saw a spike in shrink during the pandemic and cited organized retail crime in its decision to close five San Francisco stores in 2021, is backtracking. “Maybe we cried too much last year” about shrink numbers, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe said on an earnings call e…

I don't think they were crying too much, it felt like >50% of the time I was at Walgreens on Mission St in SF that I witnessed someone very blatantly shoplifting. And pretty often, I'd see a spread of someone selling standard drugstore wares on the sidewalk outside. I'd have been beyond frustrated if I managed that store.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#58

Post by LordDragonfang »

geodel wrote: post #39
LordDragonfang wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He had just chased after three shoplifters who had taken off with several packages of laundry soap. >Mr. Mackenzie adds one or two new faces every week, he said, mainly people who steal diapers, groceries, pet supplies and other low-cost goods. I feel like this especially highlights how dystopian this is. This isn't a tool being used to prevent organized theft rings[1], this is ratting out people who can't afford di…

> it's to fix the problems leading to the desperation. That is beyond the scope of store owners. They are not the one collecting taxes and deciding on resource allocation in society.

Right, which is why I wrote this in response to the comment that specifically talked about how regulation was required to prevent them from solving it exclusively within their scope, in the most dystopian way possible, and motivate these companies to direct the lobbying they're already doing to fix the problem.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#59

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

armchairhacker wrote: post #45
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #9

This is conflicting, on one hand it's certainty within the right of a store to bar people who shoplift, it's really an imperative to do so. The petty crime issue the retailers here are trying to counter is a real one. But this application it feels like falling down an increasingly slippery slope. Sure, today, it's just "send an alert and the store can do what it wants" but how long until that transforms into a de fac…

Some ways to make the system better: - Allow the accused to repay the sale price of whatever they're accused of shoplifting (or possibly even a discount) to remove the charge. There's no harm done, and nobody's banned from every store because nobody's truly banned from any store - If someone can't afford repayment, provide work or community service as an alternative. I know this is unfair to poor people effectively f…

> Allow the accused to repay the sale price of whatever they're accused of shoplifting

At 10x the cost. You need to make the penalty greater than the value from the crime.

Yes, to everything else you said.

Re: Barred from Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

#60

Post by trhway »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #9

This is conflicting, on one hand it's certainty within the right of a store to bar people who shoplift, it's really an imperative to do so. The petty crime issue the retailers here are trying to counter is a real one. But this application it feels like falling down an increasingly slippery slope. Sure, today, it's just "send an alert and the store can do what it wants" but how long until that transforms into a de fac…

>tell them they are trespassed from the store and if they don't leave within 60 seconds the police will be called

in MV on a plaza on Rengstorff and Middlefield a security unit parked in the parking lot does just about that

>flash their picture and name up on a TV

that part or anything like it is missing though. It just makes very loud untargetted announcement over the whole plaza. Who it is addressed to out of all the people on the plaza is impossible to say - at least i couldn't see any obvious target on those several occassions that i heard it .

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