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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

#601

Post by idiomat9000 »

itake wrote: post #569
ryukoposting wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the problem is that we aren't hiring enough cashiers. Using a Kroger self-checkout is tantamount to waterboarding. Hesitate for a quarter of a second before placing your item on the scale? Angry prompt. Put an item on the scanner (which itself is another scale) but it doesn't scan within half a second? Angry prompt. Get three angry prompts? Now you get a fourth angry prompt, except this one can only be di…

There are a few problems. - Real estate: Self-checkout takes minimal floor space. Stores can fit ~10 stations in the area of 2 cashier lanes. Even if you hire more cashiers, there’s no room to add lanes. - Demand vs. staffing: Checkout demand is dynamic, staffing is static. You can’t instantly add cashiers during a rush, and you don’t want them idle when it’s slow. Self-checkout stations are basically ~free to run. -…

Shops could have trusted fast self checkouts become add hoc cashiers .

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

#602

Post by throwway120385 »

godelski wrote: post #524
matt-attack wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot be more wrong. Entering the United States without proper documentation, such as a passport or visa, is considered a federal crime under 8 U.S.C. § 1325. This statute criminalizes unauthorized entry, including entering at unauthorized times or places, evading inspection, or misrepresentation to gain entry. I would love to understand if you truly believed that no such federal statute exists, or we’re just in…

The visa is your entry document. The I-94 is your status document[0]. The visa outlines the conditions (including dates) you may enter the country. The I-94 is the record of entry/departure and dictate your required date of departure. > This statute criminalizes unauthorized entry, including entering at unauthorized times or places, evading inspection, or misrepresentation to gain entry. This is a completely differen…

And I believe all of this conflation of entering the country illegally with overstaying a visa or violating the restrictions on a visa having passed through a Border Control checkpoint is at the heart of a lot of what's happening right now. The whole concept of "illegal immigration" was expanded to contain this other category of person who went through Border Control properly, they have a passport from their home country with a stamp or a visa, but they are not complying with the requirements of the visa or for the entry stamp. These people are not criminals and many of them have put down roots here and would be model citizens if they had citizenship.

Because ICE is having a lot of trouble finding enough people who crossed illegally to round up and put in concentration camps, they're scouring the country for people in the other category. And in many cases the threat of visa cancellation is being used to suppress political speech. A lot of people don't know that because they don't understand that there's a way to get here legally that doesn't involve getting citizenship or a green card. I think if you've never left the country it probably doesn't occur to you that there's a whole system of checkpoints that you can use to enter the country but almost zero control after that other than your own good faith efforts. And this is true just about everywhere else in the world.

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

#603

Post by conductr »

margalabargala wrote: post #498
conductr wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it does. I can use words any way I want. But there are agreed upon legal definitions and there are agreed upon industry terms/definition; you are talking about one of them (which sounds like industry not legal). If there's no legal definition, that means it's not defined and the court could interpret it any way they choose. Edit: it seems the law defined the term "facial recognition" so that was the only answer…

> Sure it does. I can use words any way I want. You can do that, but I hedged my statement with: > and expect anyone else to understand you under which constraint, you're incorrect. There's a relevant quote from Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass : > "When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

My or Humpty’s ability to choose meaning doesn’t ensure the listener will understand it the same way though. Even if you do expect someone to understand and feel appropriate context is present, misunderstandings occur regularly in all types of communications due to this very thing.

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

#604

Post by moomoo11 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #553
moomoo11 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you think it’s selfish when a small minority of people hold on to some fading ideals in a world where people are genuinely better off with more efficiency? Like imagine being in the era when electricity was becoming more prevalent and I’m sure some people were complaining about some ideal then as well. That said I do agree that self checkouts should not be using methods beyond what’s reasonably necessary.

>Don’t you think it’s selfish when a small minority of people hold on to some fading ideals in a world where people are genuinely better off with more efficiency? I'm all for more efficiency. Me fumbling with self-checkout is the opposite of efficiency. What's that? I should learn to do it better? How much would that cost in terms of both time and money? Multiply that by several hundred million, as compared with a fe…

Peak efficiency is having someone else shop for you or just getting things delivered.

That's what I do. I only go to whole Foods on Tue for the fun of seeing what’s on sale.

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

#605

Post by margalabargala »

conductr wrote: post #603
margalabargala wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure it does. I can use words any way I want. You can do that, but I hedged my statement with: > and expect anyone else to understand you under which constraint, you're incorrect. There's a relevant quote from Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass : > "When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

My or Humpty’s ability to choose meaning doesn’t ensure the listener will understand it the same way though. Even if you do expect someone to understand and feel appropriate context is present, misunderstandings occur regularly in all types of communications due to this very thing.

I have no idea what you just said. If I look up each of the words you just typed in the dictionary, they all have multiple meanings. Multiply that together, there are literally billions of combinations. There's no way for me to know which you meant.

In other words, to put the burden on the listener rather than the speaker to be clear about meaning, is bad communication.

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

#606

Post by nobody9999 »

moomoo11 wrote: post #604
nobody9999 wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don’t you think it’s selfish when a small minority of people hold on to some fading ideals in a world where people are genuinely better off with more efficiency? I'm all for more efficiency. Me fumbling with self-checkout is the opposite of efficiency. What's that? I should learn to do it better? How much would that cost in terms of both time and money? Multiply that by several hundred million, as compared with a fe…

Peak efficiency is having someone else shop for you or just getting things delivered. That's what I do. I only go to whole Foods on Tue for the fun of seeing what’s on sale.

>Peak efficiency is having someone else shop for you or just getting things delivered.

I do that as well. In fact, I have deliveries coming today.

But some things I prefer to get from West Side Market and/or H-Mart, which are right nearby me because of the superior selection and my ability to choose specific products for myself.

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

#607

Post by tomhow »

gotoeleven wrote: post #231
bko wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "this just doesn't work"? You do understand that an overwhelming majority of crime and overall anti social behavior is done by a tiny percentage of people. Remove those people and you spare the rest of us. For instance, the number of prisoners that have had 15 or more prior arrests is over 26%. You can just have a 15 strikes and you're out policy and make a huge impact. Once these bad actors are out…

[flagged]

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#608

Post by tomhow »

justinrubek wrote: post #287
gotoeleven wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#609

Post by gremlinunderway »

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…

Ok so Ive heard this rumour spread around a lot and I still have yet to hear anyone back this up with anything beyond just speculation and hearsay. It also doesn't make sense.

This premise assumes two things for it to be true:

1. These stores have the technology to detect when you started a checkout transaction with an item, but said item was not scanned. 2. These stores have the additional technology to detect the cost of this item (afterall, if they're aiming for a threshold then they have to have some sort of monetary figure here).

I don't doubt that machine learning object detection can say, track a banana versus an apple. But I sincerely doubt its reliable enough where it can classify Mandarin oranges versus regular oranges. If the tech was reliable enough to do EITHER of these two technical abilities (let alone both of them at the same time), then the grocery would simply employ this technology as part of the self checkout process itself. Screw prosecuting people, just have them use this wizzbang auto detection self checkout where no scanning is needed.

Finally, I sincerely doubt that even with enough instances that you'd be successful in a prosecution that you actually could prove intent to shoplift versus say the much more likely fact that you forgot to scan an item or poorly scanned it. Again, to prove a serious intent then would subsequently have to build some sort of pattern analysis (i.e. you always stole expensive cheese or something) to make it obvious.

Has there been even a single prosecuted case someone can actually point to? It really doesnt make sense. I also could see this being thrown out because an argument could be made that the company sitting back and letting this continue to occur without intervention is tacitly allowing it to continue and thus sets a precedence that its allowable.

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

#610

Post by xcrunner529 »

fumeux_fume wrote: post #330
culturestate wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the places around here that had first-gen units with a scale on the packing side (to make sure you actually scanned eg a banana and not a two pound block of cheese, yet were constantly wrong) have replaced them with newer versions that don't have scales or any other way that I can see to validate that what you scanned is what you put into your bag. I'm not sure where I would find the data to back this up, but…

The horrible scale system of self-checkouts brought my anxiety to a fever pitch. Any slight adjustment to the bag or moving anything around would literally set off an alarm for "assistance." Still gives me low-key ptsd even though I know they don't use them anymore.

Still here at Kroger which consistently calls for assistance.

And then there’s fucking Costco where after the system calling over a rep after I scanned something. apparently I am only to use the scanning gun for things that are staying in the cart, when I bagged it it called them over.

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