Thursday, December 21, 2023

Rite Aid banned from using AI facial recognition tech after it incorrectly flagged customers as shoplifters

Appears to be a stupid decision! Other retail stores ought not to be discouraged. 

Human face recognition is improving every day and it is in the meantime fairly reliable!

The approach as applied by Rite Aid stores was dubious to some extent, but this does not completely discredit the approach in general.

Certainly, one way to catch shoplifters is to identify them when they go shopping! Might also make would be shoplifters think twice!

"The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that pharmacy chain Rite Aid is prohibited from using artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition after the technology incorrectly flagged customers as shoplifters in over a thousand instances.

Rite Aid, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October, deployed facial recognition software in roughly 200 store locations from 2012 to 2020.

According to a 2020 report from Reuters, the pharmacy chain installed the technology in mostly "lower-income, non-white neighborhoods" in Democratic-led New York and Los Angeles. Rite Aid defended its use of the technology and insisted that the decision on where to deploy the software was "data-driven" and based on the location's crime statistics. ..."

Rite Aid banned from using AI facial recognition tech after it incorrectly flagged customers as shoplifters: 'Reckless' | Blaze Media

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