Security cameras are nothing new. When you go grocery shopping, it’s safe to assume you’re being watched. But will the cameras that are watching you be able to recognize you – and maybe flag you as a good customer, a troublesome couponer, or a thief?
Several major grocery chains have slipped mentions of facial recognition technology usage into their privacy policies in recent years, keeping it quiet out of apparent sensitivity to potential backlash.
But one retailer is coming right out and announcing its plan to identify shoppers on sight.
“Everyone deserves to feel safe,” the British grocery chain Sainsbury’s said in a statement. “Incidents of abuse, aggression and theft are rising,” in its own stores, and across the country. “Abuse should never be part of the job, so we’re taking action.”
That action involves launching a trial of facial recognition technology in two stores, with potentially more to follow. “The system is designed to alert trained colleagues to known offenders who have committed acts of violence, aggression or theft,” Sainsbury’s explained. “Only those with a record of criminal behavior are flagged. All other data generated by the software is instantly deleted.”
Sainsbury’s says more than half of the customers it has surveyed support using its use of the technology to protect people in stores. The advocacy group Big Brother Watch is not among them.
“Sainsbury’s decision to trial Orwellian facial recognition technology in its shops is deeply disproportionate and chilling,” Big Brother Watch’s Senior Advocacy Officer Madeleine Stone said in a statement. “Facial recognition surveillance turns shoppers into suspects, with devastating consequences for people’s lives when it inevitably makes mistakes.”
Stone went on to call the use of facial recognition “dangerously out of control,” urged Sainsbury’s to “abandon this trial” and said “the government must urgently step in to prevent the unchecked spread of this invasive technology.”
Sainsbury’s is defending its actions, saying it has already tried in-store security officers, exit barriers, locked-up merchandise, even body cameras for store employees. “But facial recognition technology is different,” Sainsbury’s quoted a store manager as saying. “It adds an extra layer of security that will give us the confidence and opportunity to be one step ahead of people committing criminal acts in our store.”
Here in the U.S., few retailers have been quite as forthcoming about their use of facial recognition technology. The group Fight for the Future, which opposes the technology, has researched the issue, pored over retailers’ privacy policies, and compiled a list of retailers that are, are not, and might be using cameras to watch and identify you – whether or not they’ve announced it publicly.
Among grocery retailers, Kroger, Albertsons and Walmart are on the group’s list of retailers that are using facial recognition technology to weed out bad shoppers. Walmart’s privacy policy vaguely states that it may collect biometric information about you, “such as voice prints, imagery of the iris or retina, face geometry, and palm prints or fingerprints.” Kroger and Albertsons are more up front about it – or about as up front as you can be in a lengthy privacy policy that no one reads. Both offer similar explanations about using facial recognition data in select locations, “for security purposes, to protect the health and safety of our customers and associates, and to prevent, investigate, and prosecute shoplifting, fraud, and other criminal activities.” And both say they post signs in stores to notify shoppers when they’re being profiled.
“Retailers justify using facial recognition to protect and predict their profits,” Fight for the Future states. “But this technology puts workers in danger, exacerbates bias, and amasses personal data. Retailers across the country that are exploring this invasive technology should know that prioritizing profit over privacy is wrong.”
Advocates of facial recognition say it can do so much more than just prevent theft or other crimes. The biometric authentication technology company HID says facial recognition can “enhance loyalty programs by accurately verifying customers and providing a more personalized shopping experience,” it can “enable faster, more secure and more efficient transactions” at self-service kiosks, “freeing employees from registers and having a single attendant oversee multiple checkouts,” and “provide retailers with the option to tap into the face pay trend that’s sweeping across everyday applications.”
None of this sounds appealing to privacy activists. “Imagine a store showing you targeted advertising based on the products you look at but never buy — or even personalized pricing based on a perception of your income once they’ve identified you,” Fight for the Future says. “These nightmare scenarios are terrifying precisely because they are so plausible.”
Lawmakers in several states and the U.S. Congress have zeroed in on “surveillance pricing,” seeking to ban the practice of setting prices based on your personal characteristics. While facial recognition technology advocates tout its crime-fighting abilities, the technology could also be used to enable the very surveillance pricing that many lawmakers are seeking to ban.
Like any technology, facial recognition at retail stores can be used for good or not-so-good purposes. One grocery chain is openly wading into the controversy, and hoping for the best. Others may already be watching and recognizing you – whether you know it or not.
Image source: Facewatch
