This shows where their priorities lie. This is also the same company that got hacked and lost credit card data of customers through their HVAC system. Bet nothing has really changed there as far as cyber security goes.
I have a friend who works for Nordstorm doing this kind of work. She claimed the bigger problem financially is employees in retail, i.e. stealing clothes in large scale to be sold on eBay.
i'm surprised by this because it's so hard to sell used goods. i have an old suit from graduation that's in perfect condition and looks quite nice. the thing will NOT sell, not even for 10$, at all even though it's practically brand new.
back when bookstores were a thing most places I used to work in one, and had a manager watch us, the entire time, as we took romance novels we couldn't sell out back and ripped off the covers before tossing them in a ship-back bin. Ditto for a few others like best sellers and some mags
she took two us out back to do it, leaving only one person on the floor to run the checkout -- field day for any serious thief. but they were more worried about us...
In 2012, Target operated a "couple of forensics labs" and at least 23 "investigations centers" for surveillance. OP's article kinda sugarcoats it. Since it's been verified Home Depot does checkout facial recognition and builds profiles, silly to think most any other major retailer wouldn't.
I predict a new class of machine learning model that will ingest a large number of low resolution video frames and dump high resolution facial reconstructions.
This stuff will probably be sold to both private and public sectors.
This is why Target self check out is the best. They have confidence in their theft deterrence so their machine has a lot of leeway and yells at me less for weight issues.
people are reading this article misunderstanding that its purpose is to discourage theft by getting nerds to constantly talk about Target this, felony theft that, not by actually being effective at a technical level
Can't someone juice this conversation with some false/misleading advice for retailers, so that after it goes thru an A.I., the A.I.'s advice for retail operations makes shoplifting and employee theft easy and simple ?
looks like the lowly shoplifter is going to bring down capitalism.
All that theft! no more profits. fuck me.
All major businesses have insurance to cover all losses from internal and external theft. Those same lossses are tax right-offs. in other words, the amount of money lost to shoplifting is less money they pay in tax.
I wonder of all the cctv, facial recognition and monitoring costs work out more than the actual shoplifted losses.
there is more to meet the eye than a lowly shoplifter here.
"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."
(Typos / spelling mistakes certainly fit this category)
It's funny to see Reddit posts driving HN posts. There was a viral post about a rather video friendly lady getting politely arrested for shoplifting at Target going around today.
A surprising number of people commented about how Target had made sure they got long sentences by waiting and recording them until they would get serious charges.
When I moved to the USA I always thought it was interesting in how many ways you can just walk out a store without paying.
I'm from Belgium, and at least where I grew up at, the stores are much more corralled. One way in, one way out.
But this forensics is also why I don't use self-checkout. Not that I steal stuff, but I don't want to end up in a situation where I forgot to scan something and get in trouble.
I've had it happen to me that something was missed at Costco, you just walk back and pay.
Do Belgian fire codes not mandate multiple exits? One problem I have sometimes seen here is people running out of a fire exit, even if they set off an alarm in the process. And you can’t block or lock those exits.
22 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 43.4 ms ] threadback when bookstores were a thing most places I used to work in one, and had a manager watch us, the entire time, as we took romance novels we couldn't sell out back and ripped off the covers before tossing them in a ship-back bin. Ditto for a few others like best sellers and some mags
she took two us out back to do it, leaving only one person on the floor to run the checkout -- field day for any serious thief. but they were more worried about us...
https://privacysos.org/blog/target-is-really-really-into-sur...
I predict a new class of machine learning model that will ingest a large number of low resolution video frames and dump high resolution facial reconstructions.
This stuff will probably be sold to both private and public sectors.
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/campaigns/biometric-information-p...
All that theft! no more profits. fuck me.
All major businesses have insurance to cover all losses from internal and external theft. Those same lossses are tax right-offs. in other words, the amount of money lost to shoplifting is less money they pay in tax.
I wonder of all the cctv, facial recognition and monitoring costs work out more than the actual shoplifted losses.
there is more to meet the eye than a lowly shoplifter here.
(Typos / spelling mistakes certainly fit this category)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
A surprising number of people commented about how Target had made sure they got long sentences by waiting and recording them until they would get serious charges.
I'm from Belgium, and at least where I grew up at, the stores are much more corralled. One way in, one way out.
But this forensics is also why I don't use self-checkout. Not that I steal stuff, but I don't want to end up in a situation where I forgot to scan something and get in trouble.
I've had it happen to me that something was missed at Costco, you just walk back and pay.