Many Americans not aware of being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

In theory, this would balance out and lead towards some level of equality. In practice, the high barrier of entrance and smaller numbers on the side of capital made it much easier for them to drive down labor prices and exploit. That led to massive inequality—think robber barons and the like—which in turn eventually led to the organized labor movement.

We are now recapitulating this historic arc in the information revolution. Now the world is divided into those who own data and those who produce it. Large corporations own giant fields of data and the computing technology required to derive actionable information from it. Everyone else gives up their personal data and attention to feed those enormous machines. This has led to the growing inequality that is causing a breakdown in institutional trust and is driving people out of cities that are increasingly affordable only to the elites who run the data factories.

At some point, we will hopefully have an "organized data movement" where people work together to be able to make effective demands about how their data can be harvested and used. We aren't there yet.

The thing with privacy is the more wealthy you are, the more valuable it is. For example, if I want to sell something, I will want to target the wealthiest first. Same thing for scammers, and newspapers will follow celebrities. Who care about the poor, there is no money to extract from them.

So let's get back to the private shopper. A rich and famous man will want to hire a private shopper, because he knows that if he is found in a shop, he will be bothered by people who are after his money and fame. His privacy is worth a lot, to him and to others.

The private shopper is likely to be of a more modest status, he can go shopping without being bothered, he may be tracked by robots and end up with personalized ads, be part of some statistics, whatever, but no one will stop him for an autograph or some special favor.

So when the rich man pays the private shopper, with a little extra for his discretion, that's resources that go from the wealthy to the "rest of us".

The same can be said for loyalty cards. The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others.

It is as if a unit of privacy is proportional to your wealth. The amount of privacy a rich man will get by paying $1000, a poor man can get it for $1. In the same way that it is much cheaper to secure a penny than a gold bar, because no one will want to steal your penny.

Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store.

I'm not trying to be flippant with this question. I'm just honestly perplexed why this is an important dateset to keep private.

Also, why would I want to avoid discounts? Grocery stores are one of the few places that gives me money for handing them my data. Isn't this good behavior!?

I think it’s fair for them to gather analytics on spending habits and use it to make decisions on how to stock their store, run promotions, etc. Same for personalized coupons. Feels weird, but is pretty harmless, and I’m pretty sure they’re just trying to get you to try new things (like for me, beyond meat) so you start regularly purchasing it.

I know this isn’t a privilege available to everyone, but I just shop at a locally owned city grocery that isn’t part of a national conglomerate. I don’t think Good Life Grocery and Rainbow are scanning my face…or maybe I’m one of the oblivious shoppers from the article?

When I lived in the midwest, I'd just get a card from Kroger but never fill out the paperwork. I thought I was being clever, but as pointed out, they still track you by your payment method. With that being the case, why do loyalty cards still exist? For cash buyers?

* Gates at the main entrances

* Cameras everywhere

* "Security" walking through the store in clearly marked uniforms

* Self checkouts with UX that clearly communicates a lack of trust.

The green box that you're describing is recognizing that _A_ face is in view of the camera. This is often used for properly adjusting focus, exposure, etc... I suppose you could call it "facial recognition", because that's exactly what it's doing. But it's fairly benign and passive. This technology exists in my DSLR cameras that have no network connection and do not save any facial data anywhere in the image.

But then there is facial recognition that knows who you are, it's connected to a network, and it logs where you go - and these back-end systems correlate this data with other data that's been collected about you. Systems that know who you are are what is generally meant when discussing "facial recognition".

This article doesn't say.

The real victims of this will be the false positives. People who follow the rules, but get incorrectly classified as shoplifters. They will be the ones who are actually turned away at the door.

There are so many facets of the human body which can all be combined. Can't see your face? Who cares- I can see how far apart your eyes are, how tall you are, your shoulder-to-elbow length, your walking speed, and your approximate weight. You're dogman144, and you spend an average of $26.34 per visit.

As a US Citizen I am strongly opposed to non-disclosed facial recognition in commercial settings. The covid masking is almost like Greek-fable humor of the gods, rendering even ATM (perfect picture) facial recognition moot.

EDIT: elsewhere in these comments someone stated that Apple does not use facial recognition.

[0] https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/stores/#scorecard

(Isn't normally the complain that Americans think themselves all that matter in the world, a la "World Series" or "World Champions" for sports leagues that span just two countries? Can't win either way, I guess!)

Also 2025: Why should I care if my gym has facial recognition technology?

2026: Why should I care if a grocery shares my DNA and entire purchase history with my insurance provider? It's not like I'm obese. I go to the gym.

2027: Why should I care that my insurance provider has DNA sequencing technology, my entire purchase history from every grocery store ever, my gym history, my driving history, my family history, a record of my health and fitness habits? I'm healthy.

2030: I suddenly have $500,000 in health bills because my health insurance provider dropped me 1 week before I had a sudden heart attack and presented 400 pages of evidence to the judge that it was justified based on the policy violations they repeatedly caught me doing. I guess I didn't read the fine print! I guess I shouldn't have smoked that one cigarette outside the bar when I was drunk that night, or have gotten drunk in the first place. And that burger on the fourth of July. I agree, in hindsight, that was over the line. All those premiums, and they drop me the second I am no longer profitable to them! But they're a business, they provide a valuable service to people who couldn't otherwise afford healtchare, so...

Or a difference between having the option of presenting your loyalty card, versus having your face implicitly being your loyalty card, with no way of knowing, and no way to opt out?

Or a cashier glancing at your ID to check that it's legit and promptly forgetting about it, versus having it scanned and tied to the transaction, and combined with your other behavioral data?

When you see a camera on the street corner, is that the same to you as greeting your neighbor?

There is a considerable difference between low data density, person to person, information... and high density, machine gathered, massive data stores. The later is much easier and more likely to be used for nefarious purposes.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/tech/2019/4/23/18512942/apple-lawsu... [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/29/apple-sued-over-f...