Facial Recognition Software Brings Personalized Ads To The Supermarket
from the I-saw-what-you-bought-there dept
Facial recognition software is getting to the point where there are some very interesting things that can be done with it in everyday life. That includes really bad ideas like enabling the police to run record checks on everyone who passes in front of their body-worn cameras. But it also means that businesses can start applying the technology in novel ways. Here's what is happening on a trial basis in some German supermarkets and post offices, as reported by Deutsche Welle:
There's a camera and a screen set up by the check-out. A visual sensor scans the faces of waiting customers who have looked directly at the camera and detects whether they're male or female and how old they are.
Marketing company Echion is running the cameras and screens. The brands that advertise with them have clearly delineated target groups. If the visual sensor detects that enough people who fall into a company's target demographic are looking at the screen, an ad by this company will start playing.
Being shown ads that are likely to be more relevant to you is probably no bad thing. But once cameras are in place, it would be natural for shops to start using them for other more complex tasks, like spotting known shoplifters:
faces of individuals caught on camera are converted into a biometric template and cross-referenced with a database for a possible match with past shoplifters or known criminals. Some stores in the US give shoplifting suspects the option of allowing themselves to be photographed, rather than arrested. All this had been made possible by the arrival of networked, high-resolution security cameras and rapidly advancing analytical capabilities.
That's from a story in the Guardian last year, so it's likely that the technology has moved on considerably since then. It's easy to think of more troubling extensions to the idea of scanning shoppers: for example, linking up to other databases of troublemakers and ne'er-do-wells, or to selfies derived from social networks.
As well as obvious privacy issues, explored in the Deutsche Welle report, a more general concern is the normalization this latest application of facial scanning might produce. Once cameras coupled with facial recognition software are routinely installed in everyday settings like supermarkets -- with appropriate warnings -- perhaps we will begin to accept them as the norm, and barely notice their silent spread to other locations and situations.
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Filed Under: creepy, face recognition, privacy, shopping
Reader Comments
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Eventual Consequence
A more likely scenario will be they shop elsewhere. Just like I stopped going to WalMart because of the abuse of their security people at the door who want to search me leaving the store. A no go, for me.
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Re:
I did note that late in their American existence (they still exist elsewhere in the world, at least in name) that they stopped this practice. I wonder how much this policy contributed to their eventual bankruptcy?
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"More relevant"
More relevant than what? A checkout is not somewhere there are normally ads, certainly not video ads, and its not somewhere we need ads.
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Just Wait
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Re: Just Wait
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Counter measures
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Re: "More relevant"
"Missy, you definitely want some hair removal for that ugly mustache of yours."
I don't want a cashier to meddle in my life based on staring in my face, and I don't want their register to meddle in my life either. Most particularly not while the next in line gets to see the register making snide remarks at me and insinuating what departments it considers me lacking in.
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Re: "More relevant"
Being shown ads IS a bad thing. Who the hell do these people think they are, getting in my face... "Hey, can I distract you for a second to show you some shitty products you didn't want and definitely don't need..." "No. Fuck off. I was enjoying nice thoughts about that hot bird in the next lane, you inconsiderate dick."
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Glasses
And on the day disguises become illegal I'll become a hermit. On a side note, can I just say that Philip K. Dick was an unmitigated genius.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Counter measures
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NO
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Re: "More relevant"
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I find some other gas station to go to. Ones without the adds even if the gas at the no add station cost more.
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Re: NO
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Intrusive at a point when egress is only desired.
Next up it will scan your groceries, as well. "Hey, %yournamehere%, you are buying ground beef, and the pharmacy items you bought today indicate high cholesterol. Did you know that ground turkey is better for you? Turkey! The other ground meat!"
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Re: NO
* Hackers gain access to the feeds and track your personal habits to target your house for burglary. It's not a matter of if, it is when.
* You are implicated in some terrorist activity because the data analytics on your behaviour patterns turned a false positive.
* The police decide they need extra revenue streams and start selling access to their video feeds to advertisers.
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Re: Eventual Consequence
If they press the issue, that crosses the line into criminal acts and self defense is justified at that point.
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Wait, wait, hang on a sec. Let me get this straight. There's probably no problem with targeted advertising--which everybody hates and esteems those who practice it only slightly higher than drug dealers and pedophiles--but trying to keep thieves (literal thieves, not digital-copying "thieves") from causing trouble for you is worthy of criticism?
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Oh hurray! Instead of a wide variety of products and services I might find engaging or enjoyable, I instead get narrowly tailored advertising for things they TELL ME I should want or things I already have. So I get to watch the same 5 or 6 ads ad nauseum because these are the things that 'my demographic' wants, ignoring the fact that if the ads themselves were actually effective, I'd likely already have them after the second or third viewing....
Its the same thing that drives me nuts about online 'targeted advertising'. I buy something online, and I get to spend the next long chunk of time having most ads 'target' the thing I ALREADY BOUGHT rather than complimentary goods and serves that might go along with it, or things that... I dunno.. I DON'T HAVE YET!
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These days, however, store surveillance systems are usually completely hidden, with tiny cameras hidden inside numerous ceiling pods, and no visible monitor to warn customers that they are being filmed. Even the dining rooms of fast-food restaurants are now usually fully video monitored, for no apparent reason (other than "because we can") as there's nothing to steal or shoplift there.
How did our society evolve from a light least-objectionable full-notification surveillance that we started out with to the stealth, blanket surveillance that we have now?
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Re:
https://www.aclu.org/blog/creeping-private-sector-checkpoint-society-and-small-step-protect- your-privacy
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Based on accusations only?
before adding legally-innocent folks to a List of Future Harassment.
Kind of reminds one of copyright trolls who insist an accusation
is enough to disconnect your internet, doesn't it? ;]
In Canada, searches are expressly forbidden without probable
cause. All security guards are trained and licensed; and regulated
to never demand searches at random or by suspicion alone.
Naturally, untrained and unlicensed persons are not permitted
to do searches at all. They are required to call the police for
that, even if they successfully and legally made a citizen's arrest.
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Re: Re: Just Wait
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