From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere | Hacker News Reader

From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere

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My 2 cents as of '21 - I think these facial recognition systems will be necessary due to the huge increase in organized theft groups around.. (at least in my neck of the woods) - I am tired of seeing stores I use to visit no longer be 24 hours, some closing completely, and some reducing inventory / locking up stuff - it wastes time and it limits my options.

But I want posted, or otherwise accessible, data retention policies. I don't think any store needs to keep pictures / videos of 99% of people beyond 15 days.

I understand actual investigating some folks may require longer retention - but there needs to be consequences for misuse, including sexualized gawking, make fun of people, kind of stuff.

Maybe some type of auto-blur for employees that would re-watch a vid clip - but the system can keep the math for recognition if someone is being investigated for a string of thefts for example.

What are the ramifications of these things when they are wrong? This needs to be figured out as well.

People should know about retention policies, and should know if data is shared - and I believe there is a different level of 'expectation of privacy' in vehicles in the parking lots too - this should be a thing.. sure it could be 'harmless fun' to rewind and share clips of people picking their nose in their car - but it's not right.

People do other things in their cars and they should not have to worry that telephoto lenses are peering inside so some hidden group of people can hey their jollies sharing all sorts of who knows what.

It's also one thing to have a computer look through imagery and tie together data points, it's different when a human is rewinding and watching - so policy needs to consider that as well imho, at this time.

My picture was taken 15 times at Home Depot over over the sale of one m8 nut.

(Today--out of boredom, and post Covid depression, I made a mental note of all the cameras viewing me at that hardware monopoly. I was tempted to steal it. Why? Just out of spite. I don't think I'm alone. Treat a man like a thief, and maybe he will comply? Most theft is internal. The managers usually steal the most. That last sentence was from a mandatory video I needed to watch while guarding the Cow Palace. My state security boss Bill was the greatest. He would feed the stray cats, even though management forbid it. I still remember this huge man walking towards me in dim emergency light carying a dead cat, and sobbing. The cats, and Bill, were the only thing I liked about my weekend job. You will probally never read this Bill, but you were one of the few people I truly respected in this life.)

Home Depot is a monopoly? Here in my midwestern city in addition to Home Depot we have Lowes, Ace, Harbor Freight, plus access to online places like McMaster-Carr.

In Marin County, 10 years ago, we had Yarbirds, Fairfax Hardware, and a bunch of other hardware stores.

They just couldn't compete with HD prices.

Oh yea----while the stores slowly closed, HD prices went up.

They are not the cheapest anymore.

(I guess this is the new/old business model? Open big, and offer rock bottom prices, with a country flair. (HD used to hire, and pay for trade specialists to help the customers. They used to pay almost a living wage. The employees were content, and somewhat friendly.).

Get the dupes used to your fantastic store/prices, and watch the competition put up Closing Sales signs.

Then raise the prices yearly.

Mr. Gekko it's brilliant.

Yup. Home Depot pulled this here and put most of the local hardware stores out of business. In addition to their prices being much higher now, they have substituted products of vastly inferior quality, to the extent that I actively avoid entire product groups there. But now I do not have another practical choice. I loved them; now, I hate them.

Last year I was at HD and all they had for one product was damaged inventory which they refused to replace.

Just wear a Corona mask imprinted with some funky design to confuse the shit out of the system.

https://www.sarabmoura.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/7d2914...

I wonder if anyone has started selling face-masks printed with something akin to CV Dazzel.

I’ve read about anti facial recognition glasses. Does anyone know if they actually work?

Yes they do.

A plain mask + reflective sunglasses can go a long way in concealing your actual facial features, all while not looking odd.

If you can add a baseball cap, a fedora hat, etc, it will cover your face from overhead cameras even better.

The older I get, the more I want to go homestead far away from busy places.

Here's the thing, most of this terrible shit, like Macy's wanting to scan your face to buy a crappy pair of jeans, or even getting harassed by the police on the highway apply to you far less if you stick away from it.

I guess that's how you become a hermit but the older i get the more OK I become with those tradeoffs.

This is also how you totally solidify Amazon's decimation, if you are going to make violating people's rights part of your experience.

Presumably you'll still need to purchase some things. If you order them online the tracking is even more comprehensive.

Yes and no. They can have lot's of metadata about me but they can't get any first hand biometric information from me from a web purchase.

How many of these in-store systems are susceptible to high-powered infrared LED hats that could interfere with the cameras. There are infrared filters for that, but how commonly are they used?

That's actually a really interesting question, because if I'm not mistaken, a lot of in-store security cameras will use IR for night vision. Assuming they use the same cameras for both facial-recognition and security, it would be reasonable to assume there's no IR filter, otherwise there would be no night-vision (and would make for a pretty poor security system).

All of the night vision capable security cameras I've worked with had an IR filter that would engage when not in night mode. It would be really silly for a store to spend the money on a system like this and use cameras that don't have a filter.

Heck, even the $10-15 cheap Chinese cameras I've purchased lately have this feature (you can hear them "chunk" as the filter is pulled aside when the light level is too low). So it's not even expensive to implement anymore.

The infrared filters do not help if a plain old, non-infrared bright LED that blinks is used. The IR filters are engaged physically, it takes a bit under a second, but not a lot under a second. With a bright blinking LED, many security cameras are rendered useless because the physical mechanisms compensating for the bright, or lack of, is always too late.

Bright blinking LED of visible wavelength would draw attention to you pretty quickly, I suppose. It would be noticeable from afar.

If I were to build a security camera, it would engage an IR filter as soon as it detects enough ambient visible light, that is, basically all the time a store is open.

Just add sequins and something loud and gaudy like that ugly as sin Ed Hardy fashion from a few years ago. You'll be noticed, and immediately ignored as a fashion victim.

Working with IP cameras for a decade now, I've not encountered one that exposes access to control the IR filter short of embedded non-IP cameras aimed at robotics.

Creepy. I wonder if anyone maintains a list of stores known to employ this tech? I'd like to avoid them.

Related, a good read is "No Place to Hide" by Robert O'Harrow who studied and predicted corporate facial recognition and profiling back in 2006.

Casinos have been using it for 20 years.

Ashes To Ashes podcast just had a great episode about facial recognition, the faults in the system, why we should care about it, and what you can do to fight it. It's pretty good if you're interested in this topic: https://ashesashes.org/blog/episodea-107-face-off

Whoever's developing this software should be ashamed of themselves

Yeah, just like ad tracking, useless chat apps, "native" electron apps, bloated Javascript laden web developers are all ashamed.

Ashamed by the vast sums of money they are making?

Are they developing this stuff in-house, or buying some technology "off the shelf" from a third party that provides these features?

They don't develop it in house. Lots of companies are selling this kind of software.

I am ready for our AI overlords.

Laozi suggests we go with the flow. Is there really an alternative?

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