“We could soon have security cameras in stores that identify people as they shop,”
Already deployed. Here's a report by a retailer who installed a face recognition system.[1] Names anonymized.
“We now know within seconds of a person walking in the store if they’ve previously been caught stealing from us. ... Suppose Johnny Johnson is caught shoplifting at a Store-Mart branch. He’s detained, photographed, and given a barring notice. Johnson’s photo is entered into Store-Mart’s database of known shoplifters, becoming an “enrollee” in the system. Three weeks later, Johnson walks into Store-Mart again. Within five seconds, the system has captured his image from the store security cameras, compared it against every photo enrolled in Store-Mart’s database, found a match, and sent an alert to the in-store loss prevention associate’s (LPA) smartphone. The LPA looks at his phone, and Johnson’s name, photo, and detention history with Store-Mart pops up. The LPA verifies that the photo in the alert actually matches the person who just walked in. Then the associate approaches and says, “Mr. Johnson, you’ve previously been given a barring notice from Store-Mart. You’re not allowed to be here. Please leave.” And Johnson walks back out. So, within a minute or so of walking in, a known shoplifter has left the store, empty-handed."
Coming next, the sharing model:
"A national shoplifter database similar to the Stores Mutual Association model is already in the works. This would mean that each additional retailer who adopts the security camera technology and starts sharing will incrementally increase the value of the system for all members."
What happens if nearly all retail stores had this and you got caught shoplifting. Are you no longer allowed to shop in public? Is thee a time limit, say 1 year, after which they should let you shop again?
> Is thee a time limit, say 1 year, after which they should let you shop again?
This implies a functioning government, and regulations.
Excluding is a decision made by each retailer individually, and the vast majority will not even have a policy for removing people from the list.
You could dynamically raise retail prices based on whether someone has bad credit, or is on one or more bad customers lists. Shouldn't the shoplifter be expected to pay extra for the risk that retailers willing to sell to them bear? Or you could just open stores that don't exclude with high prices and terrible quality products.
Yes, that's why Marks & Spencer in the UK operate the scheme and share the system with other major retailers in the UK. They are able to use the UK prevention and detection of crime exception to avoid data protection laws.
I presume that's who Store-Mart are, but there are others doing similar stuff.
Of course. See this marketing video from FaceFirst, which powered the retail application mentioned above.[1] They offer cloud-based facial recognition as a service. "FaceFirst maintains a massive, centrally managed database and server farm at our headquarters."
Since much of their input comes from video, they get lots of pictures of each individual and combine them. This improves accuracy. They use the Cognitec face matching algorithm.
WalMart tried FaceFirst in 2015, and gave up on it.[2] "We were looking for a concrete business rationale ... It didn’t have the ROI."
Already deployed. Here's a report by a retailer who installed a face recognition system.[1] Names anonymized.
“We now know within seconds of a person walking in the store if they’ve previously been caught stealing from us. ... Suppose Johnny Johnson is caught shoplifting at a Store-Mart branch. He’s detained, photographed, and given a barring notice. Johnson’s photo is entered into Store-Mart’s database of known shoplifters, becoming an “enrollee” in the system. Three weeks later, Johnson walks into Store-Mart again. Within five seconds, the system has captured his image from the store security cameras, compared it against every photo enrolled in Store-Mart’s database, found a match, and sent an alert to the in-store loss prevention associate’s (LPA) smartphone. The LPA looks at his phone, and Johnson’s name, photo, and detention history with Store-Mart pops up. The LPA verifies that the photo in the alert actually matches the person who just walked in. Then the associate approaches and says, “Mr. Johnson, you’ve previously been given a barring notice from Store-Mart. You’re not allowed to be here. Please leave.” And Johnson walks back out. So, within a minute or so of walking in, a known shoplifter has left the store, empty-handed."
Coming next, the sharing model:
"A national shoplifter database similar to the Stores Mutual Association model is already in the works. This would mean that each additional retailer who adopts the security camera technology and starts sharing will incrementally increase the value of the system for all members."
[1] http://losspreventionmedia.com/insider/retail-security/facia...