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How Retailers Watch You
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Sep 05, 2006 06:10 PM
from the itchy-back dept.
from the itchy-back dept.
garzpacho writes, "With $30 billion lost to shoplifting and employee theft last year, retailers are turning to increasingly sophisticated electronic surveillance systems to fight theft. Some systems, like RFID tags, have been well-publicized by privacy advocates. Others are less well known: video surveillance systems are being tied to software that can recognize specific types of activity and identify individuals; and data-mining software is being used to analyze everything from shoppers' habits to irregular register activity." From the article: "Despite this revolution in retail tech, you won't find many stores bragging about their new security tools. No one wants to tip off shoplifters or advertise that they suspect their customers. That's why so much of the technology is hidden in the first place. But another reason stores don't talk much about surveillance is that they know it sparks concerns about privacy. Consumer groups and legislators have opposed the spread of RFID and video surveillance for just that reason."
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Proper enforcement is still key (Score:5, Insightful)
The most recent was just two days ago -- I'd ordered a DVD on sale from Best Buy's website, and chose the store pickup option. Basically you choose a nearby store, they hold it for you at the customer service counter, and you walk in with your order info and pick up the item and a receipt. The customer service people presumably hadn't been trained to deactivate it, and I certainly didn't have any reason to go through the line -- I'd paid for it already, after all -- and the greeter/receipt checker certainly had no reason to think that it hadn't already been deactivated. It wasn't a big deal, as the guy had already seen my receipt and just took it over to the counter to deactivate it, but it was still an easily-avoidable false alarm.
The worst are clothing and/or department stores, especially around holidays. A couple of years ago I bought an item at Robinson's May on the second floor, walked downstairs, walked out the door, had the alarms go off -- and no one reacted. OK, I had a store bag, but if I'd been a shoplifter, I could have walked right off and no one would have noticed, despite the blaring alarm. I went back and forth a few times to make sure it was my bag, then went to the nearest cash register -- note, not anywhere near where I paid for it -- told them what had happened, and they didn't even check my receipt before pulling it out and removing the tag.
I've been at other clothing stores and heard the shoplifter alarm go off repeatedly during a half-hour stay. I think I've only seen an employee approach someone once. I assume this means there are so many false alarms that they have no sense of urgency when an alarm goes off, because most of the time, it's a customer who is going to come back of their own volition so they can get the tag removed and actually wear whatever it is. It's just sound and fury.
You can have the greatest detection tech in the world, but if people don't use it properly, it won't help one bit.
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Yeah, I made damn sure she saw me when I left, because I knew it would go off again.
Figured out it was an old DVD that I bought in another state, at another chain, and never opened... 3 years ago.
Damn Hastings and the E
Re:Proper enforcement is still key (Score:5, Informative)
- We can't stop anyone unless we actually see them stuff merchandise into their pockets/bags.
- If the item taken from the store is visibly determined to be less than $50, let it go.
- Otherwise, chase, but don't run too fast as to attract aggression from the accused, as far as the end of the parking lot.
- Security leaves at 6pm on weekdays. They don't work weekends. No videos are taken in any part of the store.
Parent
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the alarms are meant to catch amature shoplifters since the pro's will have the tools they need to remove tags anyways
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That's probably quite reasonable. How many shoplifters are brazen enough to go looking for a store employee like that?
-jcr
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It's like a school with an overzealous principal holding fire drills about once a week. When there was a real fire finally, a lot of people died thinking it was another stupid drill and didn't bother to get out in time.
And motivation is the key to enforcement (Score:5, Interesting)
So they have an incentive to prevent shoplifting, for it could be their stuff going out the door. THe most extreme case was when one of my employees ran after an obvious shoplifter, and tacked him across the street. He had him pinned down on the sidewalk, stolen merchandise spilled in plain view. He yelled for the employee in the place across the street to please call the cops. The other employee refused because he 'didn't want to get involved.' After all, why should he? He was paid by the hour and got the same amount whether he tried or not.
Parent
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Pinned down on the sidewalk? Does this formerly pinned-down individual and his lawyer own your store yet?
And shallow pockets matter (Score:4, Insightful)
You are a perfect example of what I am talking about in GP. ( And I mean no offense by saying that. ) Your employers decided to give you an incentive not to prevent shoplifting. They told you only the bad side of grabbing shoplifters. And you responded accordingly.
It all makes sense from their point of view. When they have multi-million dollar deep pockets they are a target for a lawsuit by a lawyer operating on contingency. Even if that lawyer knows that his odds of winning are only 1 in a 1000, it still makes sense for him to try it. So they take the low-risk approach.
But for me, whose total possesions would bring less than a 100 grand if seized and sold at fire sale, it does make sense for me and my employees to use force. I have relatively shallow pockets. I'm not a potential target for a contingency lawyer. No lawyer will touch a lawsuit against me unless the plantiff pays thousands up front.
It is kind of ironic. Criminal law codes permit them to grab people, but civil law ( as it is currently understood ) makes it unreasonable.
IANALBIAMTO (
Parent
Policy on this varies extensively.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, a store where secrity watches you pretty closely on camera and the employees know that if you set off an alarm, and then get back to the register to have it deactivated, and loss prevention hasn't shown up already, that you're in the clear.
Or, you could live in a state where concealing unpurchased items is enough for a shoplifting conviction, in which case if you go through the securty gates with stuff in a bag, either you've already purchased the items and someone forgot to deactivate the tag, or loss prevention never saw you put something in the bag and there's nothing they can do about it anyway (and most times, if you're in the store with a bag from that store, loss prevention is going to be all over you.)
It may appear unreasonable to you, but you ust don't know how (or why) it works the way it does.
Parent
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Because of insurance. If there is any insurance against liability and such in these cases, you can bet the premiums will change based on whether you allow anyone to do anything, or only 'trained' specified individuals.
Rightly, or wrongly.
Re:Proper enforcement is still key (Score:4, Funny)
"Waitresses? Fucking forget it! No way they're taking a bullet for the register. Busboys? Some wetback getting paid a dollar-fifty an hour, really give a fuck you're stealing from the owner?"
Parent
You bag it, you buy it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if indeed there will be stores in the future - perhaps entire malls - where to even enter you will need to have a wireless credit device.
I don't like the retailers watching me, but perhaps I wouldn't feel so strange about the actual merchandise itself watching me.
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They had better not watch me (Score:4, Funny)
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Cost Reduction Through Partial Implementation (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ok it's not retailers, but I think your point was broader than you realise.
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Quite a while, I'd imagine. I've never heard of any system that has the capacity to determine that information from a video clip. Even facial recognition systems, which are comparing a face to a given set of possibles, are quite flakey. A recognition system that is supposed to derive general data from low-quality, non-direct-facing security footage, especially data that humans ca
Permanent records / Shared records (Score:3, Insightful)
Think data mining in the physical world. It's just going to get worse over time.
Privacy? In a Store? Which Amendment? (Score:2, Insightful)
I swear, some days Slashdot just seems so... analog and anti-progress.
Re:Privacy? In a Store? Which Amendment? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stores are private property. Arrests and/or charges are still to be laid by legitimate police officers too, the most they can do is detain you. Your rights are not violated in any way.
I don't even mind RFIDs too much, but think they should be designed to be easily removable once you leave the store. This will take a few years to sort out I'm sure, but inventory tracking is a huge potential cost savings.
Parent
re: Computer City (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish they'd make up their minds (Score:2)
Surveillance (Score:2)
I seriously doubt that we will have a waterproof method anytime soon, but I imagine that we will eventually have nano technology that you can simply spray on merchandise and deactivate it only at the desk. You can't remove what you cannot see but as long as we're using bulky stuff and stamps on it, people wi
error rate? (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd love to see the false-positive rate on these. I've used that travesty they call a "self-check-out" at Home Depot enough times to know that they can't even put together a machine that can correctly detect a bag of nails, much less f
Please Assume No Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
I make most of my own clothes; I have not shopped new clothes for 10 years, however the few times that i have used a dressing room, I put on a pair of new, clean underwear prior to leaving home to go shopping. This way, I have no cause to care if I am watched in the dressing rooms.
Also please don't assume you can see the cameras. I was given a demo of a high quality video camera that was smaller than amout 1/2 inch square and about 1/4 inch thick.
Retail facilities are not synominous with privacy.
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If you know your size and generally just wear the same styles, you can just order your clothes on the internet.
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Sure. Why should you have any expectation of privacy on somebody else's property, unless you're in an area where they explicitly tell you that you have that privacy? A store should have every right to station as many employees as it wants to around the store, or put up as many cameras it wants, and run whatever algorithms it wants to on them. Of course, if they explicitly tell you that you won't be watched in a certain area (such as a bathroom stall), they'r
Only on /, (Score:4, Funny)
*rolling eyes*
Parent
Safeway Basket Tracker (Score:3, Interesting)
"Privacy issues" don't bother me (Score:5, Interesting)
But what have I gotten out of **government** privacy invasions.
Jack.
Shit.
Unless you are one of those soccer moms or country club dads who is so terrified of a few sabre-rattling third world nutjobs that you think that anything that gives you a 0.000000000001% great chance of not being hit by a terrorist is worth it.
(Being a southern, I saw respond with a middle finger and rebel yell)
If it's your choice, it's ok (Score:2)
It stops being ok if there is no chance to avoid it. Cameras don't discriminate between people who consider it ok to be filmed and those who don't. Also, it stops being ok when it becomes suspicious if you don't opt to take the card and be monitored.
As
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Then I noticed that my normal shopping bill went up by a few dollars, in the space of a week. I started looking around, and sure enough, items that I regularly bought for $4.99, or whatever, now had "$4.99" in some bold color, and underneath in very small print, said, "$5.99 without shopper card".
So I got a car
Target is going CRAZY. (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the old days... (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember those hand held beepers that home answering machines used to come with? I managed a 5 and dime back in the early 90's. The most advanced pieces of technology that we had were some two-way mirrors. Whenever I suspected someone of shoplifting (but couldn't prove it), I would stand next to the exit with one of those beepers and hit it when the person tried to leave. I had about even odds on the person either immediately professing their guilt, running, or otherwise doing something funny in response to the beeper. It was quite fun, actually.
And now my social commentary: we were in a really, really wealthy resort town. The people who were stealing (or at least who we caught stealing) were almost always the teenage daughters of the rich guys that came to the town for vacations... what gives? Any psychologists reading? I mean, we also caught some teenage boys and even a nun, but most were teenage girls. Older men and women were better at stealing, and usually it took the form of price-sticker swapping. We didn't catch them as often. Usually they would get caught by handing a mis-priced product to the cashier that had just spent an hour pricing the same item :)
What are their rights? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What are their rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_guard [wikipedia.org]
Of particular interest:
Security personnel are not police officers but are often confused with them due to similar uniforms and behaviors, especially on private property. Security personnel derive their powers not from the state, as public police officers do, but from a contractual arrangement that give them 'Agent of the Owner' powers. This includes a nearly unlimited power to question with the freedom of an absence of probable cause requirements that frequently dog public law enforcement officers. Additionally, as legal precedents have further restrained the traditional police officers' power of "officer discretion" regarding arrests in the field, requiring a police officer to arrest minor lawbreakers, private security personnel still enjoy such powers of discretion largely due to their private citizen status. Since the laws regarding the limitations of powers generally have to do with public law enforcement, private security is relatively free to utilize non-traditional means to protect and serve their clients' interests. This does not come without checks, however, as private security personnel do not enjoy the benefit of civil protection, as public law enforcement officers do, and can be sued directly for false arrests and illegal actions if they commit such acts.
Except in these special cases, a security guard who misrepresents himself as a police officer is committing a crime. However, security personnel by their very nature often work in cooperation with police officials. Police are called in when a situation warrants a higher degree of authority to act upon reported observations of the security personnel that could not be directly acted upon safely by the security personnel.
Parent
RFID "horror" story (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, when the shoes were completely worn out, I cut them up and found the tag. It was deep inside between two layers of cloth - it had to have been put in there at the factory.
It doesn't take much... (Score:4, Insightful)
The threat.. implied or real.. of watching employees is often enough to encourage desired behavior. It is a direct application of game theory.
Mostly a Strawman (Score:4, Interesting)
None of this tracking nonsense is going to make the slightest dent in that.
Baseball bat is better (Score:5, Funny)
It's pretty damn effective.
Parent
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COMMISSION!
They get paid a commission on the sales. It is the same in places like Radio Shack. Want to get their attention real fast? Next time they ask, "can I help you?" Simply answer, "No thanks, just shoplifting". You then get about 3-4 people just following you around the store....It is great fun the whole family can enjoy...;-)
For the humor impaired, that last part is a joke.
B.