[Kennesaw]

"images from dozens of cameras can be stored nearly indefinitely"

interesting......

[finnman69]

No more free hammers.

[Poohbah]

Among other things, groups that engage in multiple scams at multiple Home Depots are going to be seriously hosed.

[TADSLOS]

Maybe their camera operators can help me find something inside one of their poorly labeled mega stores.

[lelio]

How about spending some money on hiring more cashiers? Its a half hour wait every time I go into one of their stores.

Maybe you wouldn't have people steal items if they could pay for it in a reasonable time frame.

[dead]

If the people running the cameras are as knowledgeable about their job as the people working the floor, they'll show nothing but blurs.

[_Jim]

[image] can be stored nearly indefinitely

Here's your 'chance' to make their cork-board in the employee lounge or someone's 'wallpaper' in Windows ...

[Choose Ye This Day]

That does it. I'll have to go to Lowe's to steal my 8-foot-long 2 by 4's from now on.

Spend more money hiring employees, less on cameras, and I think everyone will be happier.

[Peace will be here soon]

"Lets see".... "We will build huge warehouse style stores, and pack them with tons of stuff , and then tell our employees to disappear from sight". "Do you think we will have any problems with theft"?

[Darius]

Why does anyone even go to Home Depot? I can see contractors and anyone else buying in bulk, but the legions of homeowners dropping in for a bag of nails mystifies me. Any savings you get on the products is lost when you are standing in line for 45 minutes.

[tiamat]

Well gosh.

The kindness just oozes out. Some days FR really ticks me off.

My husband has worked at Home Depot for nearly 10 years. ( Before that he worked at Builder's Square, and before that Hom Quarters, and before THAT ColorTile ) He teaches classes every weekend in home-improvement techniques. The guy knows his stuff, and can guide first-timers through the most difficult projects.

His store gets letters from customers all of the time that refer to him and the kindness and attention he shows his customers.

It's not a fancy job, and the pay isn't stellar, but he's good at what he does.

I don't know about these other stores you people are talkiing about, but my husband's store is well run, well-stocked and friendly, and yeah, they need the cameras, although I hate them on spec, to deal with "shrinkage".

Tia

[blam]

My younger brother worked at the Home Depot in the Dallas area. They told him to quit catching so many people stealing. No kidding. (BTW, he quit about 6 months later)

[LuLuLuLu]

This is good news. Now when the orange-vested clueless shake their heads at me, it will be on tape.

I don't doubt that they have a growing problem with theft; there are so few "associates" wandering the aisles anymore.

[LibWhacker]

. . . has begun installing real-time, digital surveillance camera . . .

Oh, goodie! . . . Something new to steal.

[TheMole]

Two words ... employee theft. Surprises me nobody else mentioned it.

[Junkman]

They could use these cameras to spot customers wandering around looking for somebody in an orange vest to provide just a little bit of service. Then again, they might want to put a couple of cameras over at Lowes to see where the customers have gone.

[Porterville]

Wow, I hope a 2X4 lands on my head at one of their stores so I can sue them with their own tapes.

[SamAdams76]

We are at the very beginning of surveillance technology. Like it or not, in a very few years, we are going to be on video pretty much everywhere we go. Already you see videocams at traffic intersections, in shopping areas, in banks and they will soon be just about everywhere else.

What is different this time is that mass storage capabilities will allow all these images to be stored where they can be indexed and retrieved years later. Technology that can identify faces by assigning a unique code to every human face is very near to reality. All the computers have to do is match up this code to a name.

So for example, let's say Joe Blow gets pinched in Lincoln, NE for shoplifting at a Wal-Mart 10 years from now. Using technology that will be common by then, Joe's face will be scanned in at the police department to obtain his unique "facial code." The police will then do a search of every digital video on file across the nation. All across the country, computers will whir and within seconds, the Lincoln police departments gets 78 "hits" on Joe Blow. The footage is then e-mailed to them instantly and they identify from those 78 video clips seventeen additional cases of shoplifting.

So now our Joe Blow is looking at some very serious jailtime. And when he get out of jail, he'll probably want to have somebody else do his shopping for him. Because every store he enters, silent alarms will go off and security cams will closely monitor his entire visit, with security people ready to close in if necessary. For Joe's facial code has now been "flagged" as a known shoplifter and with a record like Joe's, no retail store will let him enter their store without putting a microscope on him.

This is just a preview of our future. Many good things will come of it but on the other hand, privacy no longer exists. Not only will the government be able to track your every move but so will any corporate entity with access to the national files.

[BlazingArizona]

Don't be afraid when you go into one of these places and see a skeleton seated in the middle of the store. It's just a guy who waited to have paint mixed.

[GreenHornet]

They're installing 40,000 cameras in Home Depot? There won't be any room for the merchandise!

[ikka]

It is not about identifying fraud!

It is about beng able to track customer movements within the store and analyze who responds to what displays.