Posted on 12/20/2023 9:46:24 AM PST by Red Badger
Rite Aid is banned for five years from using AI facial recognition surveillance technology in hundreds of stores nationwide. The FTC Tuesday ordered the ban because that system falsely tagged people as shoplifters, disproportionately impacting people of color and women. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Dec. 20 (UPI) -- A Federal Trade Commission order Tuesday banned Rite Aid from using artificial intelligence facial recognition surveillance technology for five years because it falsely tagged women and people of color as shoplifters.
"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," said a statement from FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine.
Levine called it a groundbreaking order as he vowed the FTC "will be vigilant in protecting the public from unfair biometric surveillance and unfair data security practices."
The FTC said, Rite Aid's actions disproportionately impacted people of color and women, generating thousands of false-positive matches.
Rite Aid was using AI-based facial recognition from 2012-2020 to ID shoplifters.
The problem, according to the FTC, is that the company allegedly failed to implement reasonable procedures to prevent the false flagging of customers who were erroneously tagged by the system.
The FTC said the real harm came when Rite Aid staff acted on the false information provided by the AI-driven tech, subjecting customers who were not shoplifters to "embarrassment, harassment, and other harm."
"Employees, acting on false positive alerts, followed consumers around its stores, searched them, ordered them to leave, called the police to confront or remove consumers, and publicly accused them, sometimes in front of friends or family, of shoplifting or other wrongdoing, according to the complaint," the FTC's statement said.
Rite Aid collected thousands of images of customers, many of them low-quality, collected form store security cameras, employee phones and in some cases even news stories.
According to the FTC complaint against Rite Aid filed in Pennsylvania federal court the goal of the AI surveillance and database was to "drive and keep persons of interest out of [Rite Aid's] stores."
In some cases, the complaint said, Rite Aid got images of customers from law enforcement agencies for their surveillance database while encouraging employees to push to get as many images as possible into the database.
In addition to the five-year ban on using the AI technology, the FTC's order requires Rite Aid to delete the images collected by their facial recognition system, notify customers when their biometric information is in a security or surveillance system and delete any biometric information it collects within five years.
If/when facial recognition unfairly targets white people the elites will love it.
You have to wonder, what, exactly, was the AI saying to itself, after seeing all the images.
IBM got out of some AI research, because they couldn’t stop it from favoring blacks as proportionally more likely to commit a crime.
But that is a fact, according to national crime stats.
I realize the software may suck, but I can’t get my hands around the FTC ‘order’. More than just a little bit of overreach, imo.
I thought Rite Aid was going bankrupt and closing.
Who is the FTC to be issuing these type of orders?
Rite-Aid needs to target members and employees of the FTC as the domestic terrorists that they are.
It is. The one I use at Grand Central in NYC is closing this week. When I noticed all the shampoos and other toiletries on the shelves were going under lock and key, I realized they had a major shoplifting problem and no, it’s not white businessmen like me. I used to go there to get cheap beer to take on the train home. Now that is ruined for me. Every other place at Grand Central charges an arm and a leg for a can of beer.
Who’s gonna stop them?..................
The question, of course, is: what is the actual demographic profile of people who shoplift at RiteAid? Just because the AI is giving you an answer you don’t like, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
The will close, now that FTC has given the green light for ANYONE who thinks they were targeted by this to sue. This looks like a massive class action lawsuit.
Can someone tell me why they don’t lock these front doors and have a security guard posted by them who buzzes people out? I guess that’s racist?
A Federal Trade Commission order Tuesday banned Rite Aid from using artificial intelligence facial recognition surveillance technology for five years because it falsely tagged people who were shoplifting as shoplifters.
AI must be properly designed to obey orders from the Deep State.
It is to be their tool to crush opposition.
Some dumb programmers have not figured it out—yet.
Sounds to me that the system is targeting people he right people.
They are now.
So, Rite Aid cannot use this technology, but the CVS and the Target and the PetCo and the Walgreens all next door, they can keep using it if not too many customers complain?
Hmmm.
I had to sue Rite Aid for refusing to sell me alcohol without scanning my ID.
Stupid Scumbags already were under a consent decree with the ftc for improperly handling medical prescription information and have had other data breaches and they want my personal information every time I try to make a purchase, Nope not happening.
Yes, sadly.
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