The next fight over the use of facial recognition could be in the supermarkets

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2026/03/16/the-facial-recognition-grocery-fight-00830499

by speckx • 4 months ago

75 41 4 months ago

NoSalt• 4 months ago

rapnie• 4 months ago

While stores often implement the technology to help curtail shoplifting, lawmakers and advocates are worried that it will be repurposed for profiling customers and adjusting prices based on information gathered.

Worried? With the web of 3rd party services that are somehow involved in the delivery of any cloud service, with all their different privacy policies that apply with carefully crafted legalese, hosted in different jurisdictions. Combined with that juicy data, the New Oil that fuels surveillance capitalism. Unless somehow watertight guarantees are provided, it is more realistic to assume widespread abuse is commonplace, and work from there.

stuaxo• 4 months ago

Is it to curtail shoplifting or is the main benefit selling the data ?

If they wanted to curtail shoplifting they could employ more staff.

IncreasePosts• 4 months ago

AI seems to scale better considering most shoplifting is done by repeat offenders, and AI can do things easily like share knowledge with other stores in the area about who is a shoplifter. Also, it isn't even clear to me how more staff prevents shoplifting. Just have more people stare at cameras? Follow suspicious customers around?

bloomingeek• 4 months ago

We were in our local Target store yesterday. My wife purchased some OTC cough syrup, the self check out register wanted an employee for confirmation she was the proper age. (We're in our sixty's.) Instead of just looking at her driver's license, he used his handheld device to scan the license! I would never allow this, myself.

john_strinlai4• 4 months ago

Instead of just looking at her driver's license, he used his handheld device to scan the license!

depending on what is in the cough syrup, they arent using the scanner to verify age. they are tracking who makes the purchase, so if a bunch of meth or whatever gets cooked up, they have a list of suspects.

TYPE_FASTER• 4 months ago

Yes. Federal law requires retailers of drugs containing pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenlypropanolamine to record the buyer's name and address and keep the records for two years (https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/legal-requi...).

While there is no federal law restricting the sale of medications containing Dextromethorphan, a common cough suppressant, US states have started regulating sales of these medications (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextromethorphan_regulation_by...). It looks like most of the time, it's an 18yrs and up age restriction.

My guess would be that it's easier for company policy to always scan the ID, even for age verification, instead of having different policies depending on what is being purchased.

polothesecond• 4 months ago

Nowadays you need ID to buy dextromethorphan cough syrups even. Being sick got a lot more miserable when I learned Id have to interact with the doordasher to get my remedies delivered.

tomwheeler3• 4 months ago

In my state, you can buy products with pseudoephedrine over the counter, but the law requires you to show ID to the pharmacist who then logs your name and address. There is absolutely nothing in the law that requires scanning or storing the customer's ID, and I don't know why anyone would agree to let them do it.

c22• 4 months ago

I've found using a passport card for ID instead of a driver's license to have several advantages, including that most places seem to be unable to scan it.

chrisjj2• 4 months ago

But will those places accept it unscanned? I imagine there's a staff trust issue here.

ProllyInfamous2• 4 months ago

Not only does a US Passport card NOT scan, it also does not contain your address. Added bonus that it is not scanable.

SoftTalker2• 4 months ago

Target scans IDs for any purchase that requires them (e.g. alcohol).

Charitably, I guess they want to be able to prove in any kind of audit or claim that they are selling alcohol to minors that they are checking IDs for such purchases.

Uncharitably, it all goes into their customer profile database.

butlike2• 4 months ago

So only ever buy condoms and duct tape from Target. Got it.

gib444• 4 months ago

Shops are making extremely feeble efforts to curtail theft such that I think it's a nice cover for raising prices, slashing costs and increasing data capitalism etc

For example at a local Asda, an expensive donut brand are placed right by the entrance. I see people stealing them all the time. At Gregg's bakery, many popular items are left on a table half way to the door, almost inviting theft. Other expensive items are put in the chiller/hot cabinet open to all.

It's been so obvious what changes need to be made, you ask yourself why they have not

SoftTalker2• 4 months ago

Sales from impulse buys of expensive high-margin items are enough to offset the losses from theft.

hermanzegerman• 4 months ago

If you have decent social nets you don't need to worry about theft of basic items. If people stealing food is such a big problem, your country is fucked up in a bad way.

Here they don't even watch the self checkout, and don't use those annoying checkouts with a scale.

alex43578• 4 months ago

When people are stealing armfuls of Tide detergent or tools from Home Depot, it's clear they aren't stealing because a weak social net is preventing them washing their clothes. They're thieves, stealing for profit, end of story.

morninglight• 4 months ago

In order to read their tale about surveillance, Politico tells you to "SIGN IN".

They want you to give them your email, employer's name and your job title.

Is this some kind of joke?

Or are these people actually that stupid?

chrisjj2• 4 months ago

Or are these people actually that stupid?

Or simply they judge enough of their readers to be that stupid.

wolandomny• 4 months ago

We already lost at the airports. Not shocking :(

kittikitti• 4 months ago

I have a friend whose nearest grocery store is surrounded by Flock "safety" cameras. The police and security in the retail or grocery stores regularly share data and logins, and this extends across multiple states. He says it's been brought up in mundane traffic court and affected his ability to enroll his children into schools. Not only that, but his ability to seek legal guidance is hindered since the state can easily produce suspicious evidence on a whim against him.

It seems like anyone with even a cursory role can access this information and abuse it. It's ridiculous that this is happening. I think a sizable number of people on Hacker News actually support these systems and if you're one of them, please keep yourself safe.

cj• 4 months ago

Flock cameras prevent someone from enrolling a child in school?

I'd be curious to hear how those dots connect.

mixmastamyk• 4 months ago

Last week’s episode of enshittening dystopia:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47351239

morkalork• 4 months ago

You'll have to elaborate more on some of the details

remarkEon• 4 months ago

At some point we have to realize that all of these super intrusive tech implementations are downstream from devolving into a low trust society. The reason we have to do this in the first place is because we are electing to not put the people who abuse these goods in prison. That’s a choice we are making. The trade off is additional overhead and risk on police and prosecutorial misconduct vs vast state and corporate surveillance apparatus. Pick your poison but choose wisely.

neuralRiot• 4 months ago

I don’t know how that would work. Some states mandate that if the displayed price is different, the customer should be charged the lower price.

The_President• 4 months ago

Maybe they can facial recognize my disgust with their musak selection and vax commercials playing at 150% volume.

The next fight over the use of facial recognition could be in the supermarkets

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