Link: www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12592563/walgreens-macys-facial-recognition-technology-spy-shoppers.html
Archive: archive.ph/bhaVa
Major retailers in the US are already using facial recognition cameras to spy on shoppers, a campaigning group has warned.
The tech - usually associated with authoritative regimes like China - is being used both to identify shoplifters and serve ‘personalized’ adverts.
Caitlin Seeley George of anti-face recognition campaign group Fight for the Future told DailyMail.com its use has been ‘steadily spreading’ silently for several years.
Walgreens and Macy's are among the largest retailers to trial devices using the technology, deploying it in hundreds of stores across the country.
And it is not just America - Britain is also adopting the tech.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ion-altering-impacts.html?ico=related-replace
Cameras are being used not just to catch persistent shoplifters, but also to monitor shoppers and analyze their emotions, so that stores can deliver personalized adverts on screens inside the store, George warned.
‘A lot of stores are saying they’re using it to identify shoplifters and as a tool to deter shoplifting,’ she said.
‘But it’s also being used for marketing purposes, they are gathering information on shoppers and seeing what they are buying and not buying - and using AI tools to analyse the emotions of shoppers and see what sort of ads to direct at them.’
The global market for facial recognition technology is forecast to hit $7 billion by 2024, according to research by analyst Thales Group.
There is no federal law governing the use of facial recognition technology, George said - and in most US states there are no laws preventing its use.
Some states, including Washington, Vermont, and Maine have regulated the technology's use.
Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, encouraged retailers to use the technology to fight crime.
George said: ‘There are a few states and communities who have addressed the use of this technology, but by and large there isn't a policy on it, so stores are able to move forward at their own pace.’
ALFI boasts that its technology can 'personalise' adverts to every shopper (ALFI)
Stores are using the technology to achieve similar results to the data they get from membership cards - but without anyone signing up to a card scheme.
Companies such as ALFI boast of their ability to use facial recognition and AI to ‘detect’ people’s emotions as they stand in store - and serve tailored adverts to them.
ALFI also claims that their technology, which uses AI to analyze camera images, can accurately perceive age and ethnicity.
The company said, ‘ALFI’s advertising platform can transition between ads depending on the person who is in front of the screen.
'For Digital Out of Home advertising, that’s unheard of. ALFI can be installed on any device that has an internet connection and a camera, delivering personalized content and ads to any person looking at the screen.’
The company claims that no data is stored in their devices, so customer privacy is maintained.
Walgreens was an early an enthusiastic adopter of the technology, with 750 stores installing fridge-door sensors from Cooler Screens, which can deliver personalized adverts based on shoppers’ appearance
In Walgreens, video screens over refrigerators show adverts based on user presence (the capacity to sense gender and age remained switched off, Walgreens said).
The company has since terminated its contract with Cooler Screens.
George said that cameras in stores are used to ‘assess information about you’ and gather information on what advert to show to persuade someone to open a fridge.
She said, ‘We have been working to stop use of facial recognition really broadly in terms of government and law enforcement use, as well as private corporate entities using it in public places. And we've had some success targeting individual kind of spaces in order to put a lot of public pressure on them to get them to stop.’
The campaign has seen success in persuading events such as music festivals to avoid using face-recognition technology
She said, ‘As we saw that technology spreading in stores, we thought this could be a space to be doing this. One of the problems is that because there aren't laws in most places addressing this, they don't have to tell you if they're using it.’
‘A lot of the retailers that we reached out to we found didn't really really want to engage with us on it, because I think because they are concerned with negative public backlash, and so they'd rather be doing it quietly. Instead of publicising their use.’
A Buzzfeed investigation in 2020 found leaked documents which suggested that Macy’s had used software from the controversial ClearView AI company which matched faces against a database scraped from the web.
Macy’s has faced lawsuits over its alleged use of ClearView AI face recognition technology.
George said, ‘We reached out to Macy's and they Very adamantly said, “Yes, we use facial recognition and we don't have plans to stop it.” But part of the problem we ran up against is a lot of retailers don't really want to publicise their use.’
For ordinary consumers, there is no chance to look up store privacy policies, George said - which is why Fight for the Future maintains a list
‘For anyone who is going to the grocery store, people can't go online and look up all the store's privacy policies, every time they need to run out and get something it's just absurd. That's why we are trying to raise understanding around this issue.’
George said that many smaller ‘Mom and Pop’ stores have been quietly buying face-recognition tech - and that she believes store owners are trying to deal with shoplifting themselves, due to a lack of support from the police.
George said, ‘A lot of what we're seeing is that there's a lot of fear of shoplifting. A lot of these stores don't have the wiggle room to lose their profits on this. And then law enforcement also isn't doing anything.
‘The reality is that anytime there's mass surveillance of a society, it's used to police people.’
Archive: archive.ph/bhaVa
Major retailers in the US are already using facial recognition cameras to spy on shoppers, a campaigning group has warned.
The tech - usually associated with authoritative regimes like China - is being used both to identify shoplifters and serve ‘personalized’ adverts.
Caitlin Seeley George of anti-face recognition campaign group Fight for the Future told DailyMail.com its use has been ‘steadily spreading’ silently for several years.
Walgreens and Macy's are among the largest retailers to trial devices using the technology, deploying it in hundreds of stores across the country.
And it is not just America - Britain is also adopting the tech.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ion-altering-impacts.html?ico=related-replace
Cameras are being used not just to catch persistent shoplifters, but also to monitor shoppers and analyze their emotions, so that stores can deliver personalized adverts on screens inside the store, George warned.
‘A lot of stores are saying they’re using it to identify shoplifters and as a tool to deter shoplifting,’ she said.
‘But it’s also being used for marketing purposes, they are gathering information on shoppers and seeing what they are buying and not buying - and using AI tools to analyse the emotions of shoppers and see what sort of ads to direct at them.’
The global market for facial recognition technology is forecast to hit $7 billion by 2024, according to research by analyst Thales Group.
There is no federal law governing the use of facial recognition technology, George said - and in most US states there are no laws preventing its use.
Some states, including Washington, Vermont, and Maine have regulated the technology's use.
Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, encouraged retailers to use the technology to fight crime.
George said: ‘There are a few states and communities who have addressed the use of this technology, but by and large there isn't a policy on it, so stores are able to move forward at their own pace.’
ALFI boasts that its technology can 'personalise' adverts to every shopper (ALFI)
Stores are using the technology to achieve similar results to the data they get from membership cards - but without anyone signing up to a card scheme.
Companies such as ALFI boast of their ability to use facial recognition and AI to ‘detect’ people’s emotions as they stand in store - and serve tailored adverts to them.
ALFI also claims that their technology, which uses AI to analyze camera images, can accurately perceive age and ethnicity.
The company said, ‘ALFI’s advertising platform can transition between ads depending on the person who is in front of the screen.
'For Digital Out of Home advertising, that’s unheard of. ALFI can be installed on any device that has an internet connection and a camera, delivering personalized content and ads to any person looking at the screen.’
The company claims that no data is stored in their devices, so customer privacy is maintained.
Walgreens was an early an enthusiastic adopter of the technology, with 750 stores installing fridge-door sensors from Cooler Screens, which can deliver personalized adverts based on shoppers’ appearance
In Walgreens, video screens over refrigerators show adverts based on user presence (the capacity to sense gender and age remained switched off, Walgreens said).
The company has since terminated its contract with Cooler Screens.
George said that cameras in stores are used to ‘assess information about you’ and gather information on what advert to show to persuade someone to open a fridge.
She said, ‘We have been working to stop use of facial recognition really broadly in terms of government and law enforcement use, as well as private corporate entities using it in public places. And we've had some success targeting individual kind of spaces in order to put a lot of public pressure on them to get them to stop.’
The campaign has seen success in persuading events such as music festivals to avoid using face-recognition technology
She said, ‘As we saw that technology spreading in stores, we thought this could be a space to be doing this. One of the problems is that because there aren't laws in most places addressing this, they don't have to tell you if they're using it.’
‘A lot of the retailers that we reached out to we found didn't really really want to engage with us on it, because I think because they are concerned with negative public backlash, and so they'd rather be doing it quietly. Instead of publicising their use.’
A Buzzfeed investigation in 2020 found leaked documents which suggested that Macy’s had used software from the controversial ClearView AI company which matched faces against a database scraped from the web.
Macy’s has faced lawsuits over its alleged use of ClearView AI face recognition technology.
George said, ‘We reached out to Macy's and they Very adamantly said, “Yes, we use facial recognition and we don't have plans to stop it.” But part of the problem we ran up against is a lot of retailers don't really want to publicise their use.’
For ordinary consumers, there is no chance to look up store privacy policies, George said - which is why Fight for the Future maintains a list
‘For anyone who is going to the grocery store, people can't go online and look up all the store's privacy policies, every time they need to run out and get something it's just absurd. That's why we are trying to raise understanding around this issue.’
George said that many smaller ‘Mom and Pop’ stores have been quietly buying face-recognition tech - and that she believes store owners are trying to deal with shoplifting themselves, due to a lack of support from the police.
George said, ‘A lot of what we're seeing is that there's a lot of fear of shoplifting. A lot of these stores don't have the wiggle room to lose their profits on this. And then law enforcement also isn't doing anything.
‘The reality is that anytime there's mass surveillance of a society, it's used to police people.’
