Rite Aid is banned for five years from using artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition to try to curb shoplifting, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Tuesday. In a press release, the age…
Sadly, every rite aid I’ve been to in Los Angeles has a huge shoplifting problem. Not sure what the solution is but so far they hire multiple security guards and have many products behind locked counters.
The solution would be things like UBI and single payer healthcare so people can afford to live.
Not something that particular store can do.
Statistically not true. And even the retail industry lobbyists has started backtracking on the claims.
The only city that has seen an increase in shoplifting in the last ~4-5 years, as I have seen in actual data analysis, is NYC. Everywhere else has seen an overall trend downward.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/11/shoplifting-retail-data-moral-panic/676185/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-crime-stores/index.html
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/These narratives are all about trying to make you sympathetic to stores, creating justifications to close poorly-performing locations without suffering PR consequences, and to get the public to invest in security for retail stores so that the stores can save some bottom-line cost. And just regular ol’ conservative love of the penal system.
In the raw numbers, shrink in general is not a major issue for retail and shoplifting only makes up a relatively small percent of shrink. It’s just a great story to point to and makes great viral videos.
I don’t really care if stores invest in security tbh.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Rite Aid is banned for five years from using artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition to try to curb shoplifting, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Tuesday.
In a press release, the agency said that the drugstore company is being banned from using the technology “for surveillance purposes” for the length of five years to settle charges by the FTC.
The FTC charges “that the retailer failed to implement reasonable procedures and prevent harm to consumers in its use of facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores.”
“Rite Aid’s reckless use of facial surveillance systems left its customers facing humiliation and other harms, and its order violations put consumers’ sensitive information at risk,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement in the release.
The release noted a complaint filed in federal court Tuesday in which the FTC said the drugstore “failed to take reasonable measures to prevent harm to consumers from its use of facial recognition technology.
Back in March, the Department of Justice announced that it was suing Rite Aid, accusing it of filling hundreds of thousands of prescriptions “for controlled substances with obvious red flags” in the midst of the opioid epidemic.
The original article contains 310 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 35%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
