FTC bans Rite Aid from using AI facial recognition in stores for 5 years

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has banned American drugstore chain Rite Aid from using AI facial recognition technology for surveillance purposes for five years. The chain deployed the technology for eight years across 200 stores to help identify those who had previously shoplifted from its outlets. If a match was …

[VicMortimer]

5 years isn't good enough.

It should have been permanent, and extended across the entire retail industry.

[Grogan]

Re: 5 years isn't good enough.

Yes, there's no fucking way that should be in the hands of retailers. I don't even think transport security ("TSA") should be doing that, but at least that could be argued and they'd have better resources to do it properly, in theory.

[trindflo]

Re: 5 years isn't good enough.

It sort of ended up being permanent. Part of what forced Rite-Aid into bankruptcy was lawsuits. Attacking your customers seems to be part of the death throes of a failing business if the business is large enough.

[ecofeco]

Re: 5 years isn't good enough.

As I've always said, the ideal American business is to force customers to pay and deliver nothing in return.

And despite all the laws and regulations, it never seems to stop the bastards from trying, and sometime succeeding.

[MachDiamond]

Re: 5 years isn't good enough.

There should be fines and other penalties, but some stores are having a bad time curtailing shoplifting and they either tech up or close up in places. California and some other states have passed laws that reduce the penalties for shoplifting below a certain amount so low that many times cases won't be prosecuted. If the cases are getting dropped, the police start spending their time doing other things and just sending around a non-sworn police employee to take a report that can be used to a swage the insurance company requirements to get compensated in places where insurance companies still provide that sort of coverage.

There's plenty of cases where even the police are slavishly taking the output of a facial recognition system and going out and arresting that person even though it's plainly obvious that it's the wrong person. Those police should get sued and stores that shake down a 10 year old based solely on an FR alert should wind up with serious fines. Pain is a great teacher and there is such a thing as financial pain.

These things are tools the same way as a hammer. You can drive a nail or turn your thumb purple. It's all in the way you use the tool.

[katrinab]

Re: 5 years isn't good enough.

Insurance isn't going to cover regular shoplifting incidents, and things that happen on a daily basis aren't things you would want to insure anyway.

[elsergiovolador]

Skull measuring

Skull measuring, otherwise called as "face recognition" should be illegal.

Imagine what is going to happen, when history repeats itself and Nazis or Communists again come to power. What are they going to do with such models and datasets.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Skull measuring

"when history repeats itself and Nazis or Communists again come to power"

Tell me, what do you occupy your time with outside the season of goodwill and optimism for a new year?

[Someone Else]

Re: Skull measuring

Imagine what is going to happen, when history repeats itself and Nazis or Communists tRump (aka "t'pineapple") and his horde of latter-day brownshirts again come to power.

There. FTFY.

_{Chances are, that's what you meant anyway, but didn't want to risk the ire of the MAGAt downvoters. I get it....}

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Skull measuring

"The Church of the Latter Day Brownshirts"

+1 for a new phrase.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Skull measuring

"The Redemptionists of Holy Hammer and Sickle" would be at it too.

[low_resolution_foxxes]

Re: Skull measuring

At the risk of sounding like a pedant, the 'brownshirts' officially belonged to a party called 'The National Socialists' who fundamentally wanted to destroy capitalism and the Western banking systems.

Trump may be many things, he may destroy many other things, but he is not advertising himself with similar goals.

It is surprising how many people fail to recognise the official political philosophy of this party.

[doublelayer]

Re: Skull measuring

"It is surprising how many people fail to recognise the official political philosophy of this party."

And one more of them, since what you've put in there is inaccurate. No, they did not plan or try to destroy capitalism. Having the word "socialist" in the name does not mean that, and you can look at speeches or actions to demonstrate otherwise.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Skull measuring

To quite Mussolini, fascism and corporatism are the same thing

[katrinab]

Re: Skull measuring

The Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany ended up in the same place, and are condemed for the same reasons, which is entirely correct as far as it goes.

However they did reach that place from very different starting points, and via very different routes, so if you are looking now at whether some other group will end in that place, maybe substituting Jews for a different minority group, then you need to be aware of that.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Skull measuring

It's worth noting the links between modern trumpers and pre-ww2 american nazi groups such as the german-american bund

also the ties between american industrialists and nazis, the ties between american industrialists and evangelicals and the ties between nazis, crow, eugenics, the Confederacy and flag worship

The ancestry of modern fascism is a family vine that's fairly easiy traceable

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Skull measuring

Why imagine? It has already happened in China. They have a fascist dictator in charge and they *make* most of the systems you describe.

[Marty McFly]

Re: Skull measuring

Nazis & Communists both came from populist movements and were a good idea....until they weren't. And by then it was too late.

The history lesson is to not permit ANY government access to ANY tools which could be used to suppress the masses. Governments always consolidate power and will vigorously protect that power, including turning against their own citizens.

[Zibob]

Delete everything?

All well and good,

But

Had Rite Aid been seeling back or adding to training sets for other facial recognition systems. Submitting what is now known to be false data, poisoning any sets it went into.

No ruling on that? So this may well occur again in the future because of the actions of rite aid now.

[Nightkiller]

This would never have happened if Rite-Aid used Chinese Tech.

[ecofeco]

I see what you did there. Have my upvote.

I see 6 other people did not get the joke.

[yetanotheraoc]

Seven

"I see 6 other people did not get the joke"

Because I did not get the joke, and I did not downvote.

[bemusedHorseman]

Working as Intended

"the actions disproportionately impacted people of color", aka a built in feature in the utility function of all facial recognition tech ever. ...Accusing an eleven year old of shoplifting is a novel one, though.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Working as Intended

I knew a number of 9 & 10 year old shoplifters - all of them were white

[Chris Mitchell]

The Tories just did this

Jimmy Dimly is about to get this and do much more;

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/20/police-to-be-able-to-run-face-recognition-searches-on-50m-driving-licence-holders

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The Tories just did this

To be fair, at least the source material is likely to be a lot better quality than what Rite-Aid was using. But who knows what the quality of the matching s/w will be.

[IGotOut]

Re: The Tories just did this

I doubt it. My licence looks that 8 years old looks nothing like I do now.

[katrinab]

Re: The Tories just did this

My driving licence expires about 3 months before my passport, and the photo on it came from my old, almost-expired passport. So it is going to be about 19 years old by the time it comes to expiry.

[trindflo]

I wonder how difficult it would be...

I bet you all know where this is going based on the subject!

I wonder how difficult it would be, strictly for educational purposes of course, to feed facial images of the company management into such a system. If politicians were fed into it, it might provide insight into what it takes to get images removed and just how quickly it can be done. This would be important information to have if suing the operators of the system for negligent libel.

[low_resolution_foxxes]

Re: I wonder how difficult it would be...

I absolutely heart this idea!

Does it allow manual upload?

[Mike 137]

Indications of failure

From the FTC blog: "Rite Aid’s facial recognition technology told employees that just one pictured person had entered more than 130 Rite Aid locations from coast to coast more than 900 times in less than a week."

That might have told them that the system was flawed, supposing anyone was paying attention.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Indications of failure

Nah, they just spotted my Clone Army.

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have to be really good at eyes and teeth to be effective.

[low_resolution_foxxes]

I ended up going down the rabbit hole on this topic and found an interesting example of this feature being used well

https://www.conveniencestore.co.uk/your-stories/how-i-used-ai-technology-to-stop-15-shoplifters-in-two-weeks/664383.article

I thought this was a great way to manage it, i.e. waiting at the tills by the exit until you stop the shoplifter

[Alan Brown]

The problem is that it requires a sensible approach to risk management rather than going over the top - ie, it's fundamentally incompatible with the American mindset