NZ Supermarket Face Recognition Creates Dilemma.
NZ Supermarket Face Recognition – NZ supermarket face recognition solutions are creating a dilemma for privacy groups and law enforcement agencies.
NZ’s privacy commissioner will be closely watching a facial recognition trial that will be implemented by Foodstuffs, which is putting the technology into 25 of its New World and Pak’nSave stores over the next 6 months as part of a bit to fight rampant retail crime.
Late last year, Retail NZ estimated the total annual cost of retail crime at $NZ2.56b, including the cost of crime prevention and well-being costs for staff affected by criminal acts.
Retail NZ’s Retail Crime Survey found 92 per cent of those surveyed had experienced it, with 82 per cent saying shoplifting was the most frequent crime in the past year. According to the report, retailers lost an estimated $1.1b in external crime, including burglary, and $250m in internal crimes such as employee or supplier theft or fraud.
NZ Supermarket Face Recognition
The face recognition system being trialled will not only monitor shop lifters. Users of Woolworths’ Everyday Rewards card have agreed to clauses in its privacy policy terms and conditions allowing the company to record license plates and capture video and audio of customers that can be used to identify them.
Woolworths says that video and audio recordings are made for security, safety and theft prevention reasons. In Australia supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths have also introduced face recognition at self-checkouts.
The Australian government has announced a group to consider regulation of high risk AI applications but it’s unlikely these applications are going to fall into that category – instead they will be ‘self-regulated’, a phrase which seems broken from the outset.
You can learn very slightly more learn more about the Woolworths privacy policy here or read more SEN news here.
“NZ Supermarket Face Recognition Creates Dilemma.”
