Grocery store ‘smart shelves’ will target consumers in real-time based on their facial features

AFP Photo/Lionel Bonaventure

Going to the grocery store is about to get a lot more personal: one of the biggest names in food is preparing to launch “smart shelves” to gather intelligence on consumers and customize their shopping experience.

Mondelēz International, the parent company of Kraft Foods, plans on having their space-age smart shelves rolled out on supermarket floors sometime in 2015. And if all goes as planned, soon after the multi-national corporation behind products such as Chips Ahoy, Oreo, Wheat Thins and Ritz will begin collecting analytics about impulse buys and learn new ways to bring customers the products they crave.

The devices — still in development — will rely on high-tech sensors to snoop in on the facial features of shoppers and predict roughly their age and sex. From there, a database of intelligence can be matched in real-time and allow Mondelēz to make recommendations, offer discounts and practically any other imaginable option. All, of course, specific to how the company’s data perceives that type of customer.

“Knowing that a consumer is showing interest in the product gives us the opportunity to engage with them in real-time,” Mondelēz CIO Mark Dajani told the Wall Street Journal recently.

Speaking to the Journal’s Clint Boulton, Dajani described how customizing what each consumer sees offers an array of new opportunities to the retailer.

“When people walk by, it’s a missed opportunity,” Dajani told the paper. “We must know how the consumer behaves in the store.”

And by relying on behavior and not identity, Dajani has had an easier time than one might imagine distancing the smart shelves from any sort of surveillance tool that actually identifies its subjects. Mondelēz’s product won’t involve cameras at all, instead prefering sensors to shape together the likely age and sex, according to the Journal, and matching that information about what the company already knows.

“The sensors use this data to alert the display to feature something that a teenage boy is more likely to buy, such as gum or a chocolate bar,” Boulton wrote. “The shelves also use sensors based on Microsoft Corp.’s gesture-based Kinect for Windows technology and if the boy looks at the shelf long enough, the shelf’s display may play a video targeted for his demographic.”

Those shelves, he added, will be more than just forward-facing interfaces to engage the customer. Weights sensors will reveal when products are picked up, and that information could also alert the grocer that its time to re-order — or re-think their inventory.

Boulton reported that the company may consider implementing data already stored in the enterprise database system it already has, and said no personally identifiable information will be collected about any customer caught shopping by the smart shelves’ sensors.

The end result, some hope, could be quite lucrative.

Dajani described the smart shelves as just the latest opportunity to connect another item to the ever-growing “Internet of Things” concept, essentially paving the way for anything imaginable to be wired to an information network. RawStory reporter Travis Gettys drew a correlation between Boulton’s article and another recent story in the Journal about a Gartner Inc. report which determined the technology being developed for smart shelves and similar products could generate $ 1.9 trillion by 2020.

Source: RT

End the Lie – Independent News

Grocery store ‘smart shelves’ will target consumers in real-time based on their facial features

Ohio facial recognition database can be accessed by 30,000 police officers, others without any oversight

By Madison Ruppert

Editor of End the Lie

(Image credit: threephin/Flickr)

Some 30,000 police officers and court employees in Ohio can access driver’s license images in the state’s facial recognition database with no oversight or audits, according to a report.

While this is the nation’s most permissive system, the fact is that facial recognition systems are used nationwide with similarly lax legal standards, as I reported in June. Similar databases are on the rise thanks to the FBI’s distribution of facial recognition software and their $ 1 billion facial recognition system.

An investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer/Gannett Ohio found that the system was implemented without first reviewing security protocols or telling the public about it.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office launched the facial recognition system in June, according to the Enquirer. The technology was in use in over half of the states at the time, according to DeWine.

Such technology is not only used in law enforcement contexts. Indeed, increasingly powerful facial recognition systems are being rolled out on platforms ranging from mannequins to drones to border crossings to city-wide systems around the globe.

However, the Enquirer reports that some states have the use of these systems on a tight leash.

In Kentucky, only 34 people can run a facial recognition search, according to the Enquirer. Of those, three are in the license bureau and 31 are in the state police department.

Ohio’s level of access is “unmatched anywhere else in the country,” according to the Enquirer. As part of their investigation, they contacted officials in every other state and the District of Columbia to obtain details about their facial recognition systems.

In addition to Ohio, 37 states along with the District of Columbia have launched facial recognition systems that are capable of matching a driver’s license picture with another photograph.

In most states, the system was launched by the driver’s license bureau in an attempt to prevent duplicate identification cards and fraud. Ohio’s system, on the other hand, was launched by the attorney general.

On the other hand, 12 states do not use facial recognition software at all. Another 12 states use facial recognition software but reportedly do not allow law enforcement agencies to access the technology.

Since Ohio launched the system, it has been quite popular. Officers have performed at least 2,600 searches on the new database since June 2.

The precise nature of these searches is not clear, though the system can be used to match driver’s license images and police mug shots with any image, even one captured by a surveillance camera.

The database does not just include photos. The investigation found that any of the 30,000 people with access to the database could also acquire information as personal as home addresses and Social Security numbers.

DeWine said that he is satisfied with the system’s “adequate” safeguards. He said that the threat of prosecution and other safeguards help prevent misuse of the system.

However, we know that government employees aren’t always the most scrupulous when it comes to use of their systems.

After all, NSA employees used the agency’s massive international surveillance network to spy on their lovers and former spouses.

Furthermore, a recent Enquirer report revealed, “The lead attorney for Ohio’s law enforcement database resigned in 2009 after misusing the system but was not charged with a crime.”

“Without stronger restrictions and security measures, how many cases of abuse are slipping by in offices across the state?” the Enquirer asked.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio clearly does not agree with DeWine’s claims about adequate safeguards.

In an August 26 press release, the ACLU of Ohio called on DeWine to “pull the plug” on the program.

“Without specific limits on what government can do with this technology, its use will inevitably and eventually spread to Ohioans who are not criminal suspects,” said ACLU of Ohio Associate Director Gary Daniels. “This is not speculation. It is a foregone conclusion when government thinks of law enforcement first and its citizens’ right to privacy last.”

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End the Lie – Independent News

Ohio facial recognition database can be accessed by 30,000 police officers, others without any oversight