How Retailers Watch You

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."

Proper enforcement is still key

I can think of a number of times when I've bought something and the clerk -- whether new to the job, distracted, or just lazy -- has forgotten to deactivate or remove the RFID tag, and I've walked toward the front door and had the alarm go off.

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.

Re:Proper enforcement is still key

When I worked at Fred Meyer as a teenager, we were told a few things:

- 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.

And motivation is the key to enforcement

I own a store ( a lot smaller than Best Buy ). I try to encourage my employees to think like the boss; to have the same goals and the same motivations. To accomplish this, one of their perks is to be able to consign merchandise here. When it sells, they get 80%, the house keeps 20%.

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.

And shallow pockets matter

As the owner of a tangible piece of property, or as an agent ( employee ) of the owner, you have the right to grab people who steal from you. You can make a citizen's arrest. You just have to be able to convince a judge/jury in civil court that your actions are reasonable. You can use force, just no more than a judge considers neccesary.

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 ( ...but I am married to one )

Policy on this varies extensively....

As someone who knows quite a few people who work retail and work retail loss prevention, you could have very simply been at a store where no one is authorized to do anything about shoplifters except specified loss prevention employees.

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.

Re:Proper enforcement is still key

if you pay your retail employees near minimum wage

"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?"

You bag it, you buy it.

Does anyone remember the commercial where the suspicious looking guy with the trenchcoat walks around a store, stuffing things into his pockets and makes for the door only to have an employee stop him saying, "sir, you dropped something," and handing the item to him?

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.

They had better not watch me

I shop online from home.

Cost Reduction Through Partial Implementation

Cost is one reason retailers are holding back: Tags run from 7 cents to 20 cents apiece, based on quantity; many are waiting for a 5 cents tag before investing in the technology. "The tags would have to be a lot cheaper... to put them on a bottle of water or pack of gum and add value rather than cost," explains Simon Langford, Wal-Mart's manager of RFID strategy.

Well, that's an interesting point. But equally interesting would be investigating the possibility of putting tags on, say, maybe one in five or a fraction of your products. The idea being that you don't catch everyone who shoplifts your product but you do catch a fraction of them. Ideally, it only takes one infraction for someone to realize that it just isn't a good way strategy for obtaining items. I know this isn't how it is, many shoplifters continue with the infractions but it's better than nothing and might put the solution in your price range.

I wonder...

How long will it be until these systems start to look at the ethnicity/gender/age of people and use that to gauge threat level? We're on a slippery slope here...

Double-edged sword

This is an okay idea, but it unfortunately could backfire. While store security is definitely very important, new technology always stirs up some discontents--truth be told, there is a fine line between security and invasion of privacy. I'm all for the new systems, but they will also bring up tech security issues, etc.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Baseball bat is better

In my store I use a baseball bat. While a double-edged sword is quick, it also leaves a big, bloody mess, and lots and lots of police paperwork. I prefer just to crack 'em in the kneecap with my aluminum bat. It hurts a lot, and they have to just lie there until the cops get there.

It's pretty damn effective.

Permanent records / Shared records

Professional shoplifters will target multiple stores, so it would be in the interests of the retail industry to share information. Barring legislation they would have no reason to delete this information. If you act suspiciously once, you could be tagged for life. They could match all of your purchases (even cash purchases) with your face for life. The LCD screen near the entrance could change to match what they want to sell you.

Think data mining in the physical world. It's just going to get worse over time.

Privacy? In a Store? Which Amendment?

Think of the cameras as hi-tech plain clothes store "detectives;" y'know, the pensioners who are paid to blend in with the patrons and report anyone suspicious. The cameras and high-density servers just do their job, only more efficiently and less expensively.

I swear, some days Slashdot just seems so... analog and anti-progress.

Re:Privacy? In a Store? Which Amendment?

A long time ago when I worked in retail (Computer City), we had store numbers that suggested anywhere from 50-100% of our net-profit each week disappeared due to 'shrinkage' -- that was the innocuous term used for shoplifting. Back then companies weren't so blatant as to openly suggest a large # of our 'customers' were liberating the products, but that was precisely what was happening. Pretty slick stuff to.. it was back when Win95 was release, people would use razor blades to open the box, slide out the cds, and leave the box behind. That's why now shrinkwrapped software comes in that ridiculous overpackaging -- the corragated cardbord box inside a box is to prevent quick theft.

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'm speaking as a Canadian, but our laws are roughly equivalent in this regard.

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.

I wish they'd make up their minds

When you use a credit card - I just wish the people who want your home phone number, the people who want to see your drivers licence, the people who want your addrss and zipcode and the people who want the hash code off the credit card would all get together and decide which pain in my ass I have to accept.

Surveillance

In Sweden, we had a raging debate over this a few years ago. It all started out when a mall wanted to put camera surveillance in the dressing rooms. Apparently, this is where most of the thefts occur.

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 will always find a way to remove it safely and just walk away.

My Rights Online??

Why is this a YRO category topic? It doesn't appear to be about online shopping.

error rate?

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.

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 flawlessly predict which customer is going to shoplift.

Please Assume No Privacy

Lets please assume absolutely no privacy in any retail facility. Not even in the dressing rooms.

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.

Only on /,

Only on /. would someone make a point to mention that they put on clean underware before leaving their domicile. I think normal people must take clean underware for granted!

*rolling eyes*

In Soviet America

In Soviet Amerika, you are guilty before you're proven guilty!

Seriously though: DRM, Activation, data-mining video surveillance, bills of attainder...it's getting worse.

old school way isn't very friendly either

i was recently shopping in las vegas at a well known men's shirt designer's boutique. i was promptly asked if i needed any assistance and gave the ol "just browsing, thanks".

the man proceded to watch my every move. i don't believe he was ever more than 3 feet from my position. i looked over at my girlfriend and she gave me a huge, silent "WTF?!". the only reason he ever left me alone was because another shopper came in and he started stalking him.

only once before in my life have i been treated like a criminal as soon as i entered the store, and that time before i left without any heistation. give me some respect, please!

Safeway Basket Tracker

The other day when I went to my local Safeway supermarket, I selected a plastic hand-basket and noticed something odd. It had a small black box, about 1" X 1/2" X 1/4" sloppily zip tied to the underside of the basket. I flipped the basket over, and read some company logo along the lines of ShopTracker or some such thing. I was pretty irked, so I tossed it behind the stack of baskets and selected an unencumbered model. They want to know where you visit, and where you linger. No warning on the basket at all...

"Privacy issues" don't bother me

I just checked my last grocery receipt and I have saved somewhere between $200 and $250 this year so far using that card. That's good money for me to be saving. That's about a month and a half of gas money for my commute to work! I could care less if I lose a little privacy for that kind of savings because I get something that I can see the benefits of.

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)

Target is going CRAZY.

Targets security is going insane. I've seen them stop people who they watched pay for their items. The best was a guy who bought a Grill and only a grill. It was in a HUGE box and 2 target guys where wheeling it out for him. The security guard watched him pay for it and he still stopped him at the day to verify his receipt. All that does is tell your customers we dont trust you.

Back in the old days...

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 :)

Privacy please

Yes, I advocate privacy when I'm stealing store merchandise too.

What are their rights?

So what if you walk out of the store, and the alarm goes off, you know you aren't guilty, and just continue walking. What can the store do except ask you to stop and hope you do? Are there any laws against disobeying the order of a private security guard?

Re:What are their rights?

No consequences to you unless he places you under arrest. And then he and the store are both fucked in court when you bring false arrest charges.

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.

$30 billion lost

I'd like to point out that $30 billion lost is based on the price of the item, and not the cost to make.

For instance, jeans at a $60 markup (from cost to make, not including advertizing) means that 500,000,000 jeans were stolen last year. Still a large number in my opinion.

Target

Target Corp has some crazy AP technology. They actually hold seminars and train the FBI. They setup the surveillance for the entire downtown Minneapolis area. They also rushed some tapes to make critical identifications in big cases to their AP division. They do large busts, including international fencing rings and stuff. They are absolutely huge when it comes to assisting the law enforcement community and have won a few awards.

I don't think consumers have anything to worry about. Who really cares what you buy at a Target store? If you are willing to let the cashier know then why not the AP staff? The odds are so ultra low anyways that they actually are paying attention to you.

RFID chips, my mini-commentary

I do not oppose RFID chips if they are used correctly.

As long as the chip information is purged from their system once the return policy has been passed (like 90 day returns, whatever the store's policy), that's fine. They don't need to keep information in their system passed that.

Maybe we need legislation introduced to make it illegal for any store to retain RFID-based information for more than 3 months once an item has been purchased.

In the dark

I think stores should do all the freakish Big-Brother stuff they want to protect their valuable commodities, but people need to be informed. If the methods are effective, they will work whether people know or not (perhaps even better if they do)- if not, they will fail once a thief gets wind of the details.

You can't get software security by hiding your code, and you can't get store security by keeping us in the dark.

P.S on RFIDs, I just walked out of a library with an RFID tag that failed to register with the checkout machine as borrowed, but allowed me to get past the front door. Since I was informed about the tag (standard anyway, but for arguments' sake) I went and reported it. But if they were playing wise-ass on us, I would have kept the book for ever and ever. And ever.

insert subject here

"With $30 billion lost to shoplifting and employee theft last year, retailers are turning to increasingly sophisticated electronic surveillance systems to fight theft...."

Or, you know, they could use that money to actually pay their employees decently and give them beneifits, etc. You know, boost morale, pay people what their work is actually worth to the company, make them feel appreciated, etc. But nah, we'll keep stripping away all the things that make having X job worth a damn, treat the employee like crap, and spend wads on otherwise unecessary surveilance aimed at them. <Insert ginormous rolling eyed smily here>

wrong approach

"No one wants to tip off shoplifters or advertise that they suspect their customers."

trying to catch someone is expensive, hard to do, error prone, and has a sizable civil risk.

IT is far better to have people appoach suspects and talk to them, or just obviously follow them.

RFID "horror" story

My worst problem with this is, as others, when the RFID tags are not deactivated. In my case, it was a pair of shoes someone had bought me for a gift. Problem was, the tag wasn't deactivated. Additionally, the tag was BUILT INTO the shoes! Every time I entered and left a store wearing the shoes, it would set off the alarms. I had more than one overzealous doordude try to stop me. Eventually I got to where I would warn them before I even stepped through and hold my hands out so they could see I wasn't carrying anything. One refused to listen and tried to detain me - I told him to get his *@*## hands off me before I had to defend myself against unlawful detainment. He was furious, but I had already explained to him the situation, and he was too stupid to comprehend that a tag might be on something I OWN and not have been deactivated!

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...

I was doing some low voltage wiring repair at a high end lighting retailer. Turns out that their shrink was staggering before they simly installed some video cameras in the wharehouse. Some of them were not even functional, but you could not tell which. Their employee theft problem went away over night.
The threat.. implied or real.. of watching employees is often enough to encourage desired behavior. It is a direct application of game theory.

Wal-Mart

Everyone knows about the tags that set off the ICS or whatever they are calling it these days. Those are completely useless since they have old ladies manning the front doors who can't stop anyone. Here in my town they just installed RFID but have yet to get any RFID merchandise. They do have some nifty tricks like laser designators that signal the cameras to follow targetted people. They can use them to track up to six "targets" at once.

Oh, btw the wal-mart in Bryant, AR does not prosecute ANY shoplifting because of complaints by the county court about all the work they were having to do. This includes the guy that I observed getting caught FIVE, YES FIVE times inside of two hours trying to steal a 1500 dollar lcd tv. He was never charged, police never called. He was only told not to come back.

For this sort of money ...

For this sort of money they could afford to hire extra staff instead. Not only would stock losses lessen, but service levels would be up too.

Mostly a Strawman

For supermarket chains, the serious losses are not from shoplifting. The really serious theft is the entire truckloads of goods that never make it in the backdoor of the store, but that the chain ends-up paying for. These operations are usually operated by insiders, often reaching up to quite senior management levels, as full-time businesses-within-the-business.

None of this tracking nonsense is going to make the slightest dent in that.

RFID Art Protest

OK--next time you are at X-mart try and collect as many RFID tags as you possibly can. Then attach them to your body in creative and interesting ways. Finally--run for the door. When stopped asked for a body search.

This could be a lot of fun with a large group of 20-30 conspirators.

On the other side of the spectrum

A lot of stores try to hide their security equipment. I guess that makes sense for them.

Here's the flipside of that: A friend of mine works in a smaller store that can't afford much of a security system. So they bought the little tags that you can pin on to items (The shop sells a lot of clothes) and they put them on the articles and dont try all that hard to hide them. The funny part is that the store doesn't even have the detectors at the doors!
Their theory is that shoppers / shoplifters see the taged clothing items and just assume that the rest of the security system is in place. The best part is that it seems to be working!

Self Pay Terminals..

As Self Pay Terminals become more the norm throughout the department stores, I wonder how the tags that require deactivating are deactivated. Possibly by scanning the barcode. But that would require the tracking tag to be placed by the barcode, thus enabling easy location and possible removal of the device.

Theft = Signs of bigger problems

IMHO the fact that theft is so widespread is a sign people aren't being paid enough and prices for many items are too high.