Rite aid It has been Banned US drugstore giant’s use of facial recognition software comes after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finds ‘reckless use of facial surveillance system’ humiliates customers and ‘compromises confidential information’ was banned for five years.
F.T.C. orderU.S. Bankruptcy Court approval required after Rite Aid Filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code In October, it directed Rite Aid to delete images collected as part of its facial recognition system rollout and products built from those images. Companies must also implement robust data security programs to protect the personal data they collect.
Reuters 2020 report Details of how the drugstore chain secretly installed facial recognition systems in about 200 U.S. stores over an eight-year period starting in 2012, using “primarily low-income, non-white neighborhoods” as testbeds for the technology. Stated.
With the increase in FTC Focus on the abuse of biometric surveillance, Rite Aid was firmly targeted by government agencies. Among the allegations: Rite Aid partnered with two contracting companies to create a “watch list database” containing images of customers it said had engaged in criminal activity at one of its stores. Includes what you did. These images are often of low quality and are taken from CCTV or an employee’s mobile phone camera.
When a customer enters a store that appears to match an existing image in the database, employees receive an automated alert instructing them to take action, which in most cases involves “get closer and identify”; That means verifying the customer’s identity and asking them to leave. According to the FTC, these “matches” were often false positives, causing employees to falsely accuse customers of wrongdoing and causing “embarrassment, harassment, and other harm.”
“Following false positive alerts, employees may follow consumers in the store, search them, order them to leave, call the police, confront or remove consumers, and sometimes shoplift in front of their friends and family. and other misconduct,” the suit says.
Additionally, the FTC said Rite Aid did not notify customers that facial recognition technology was being used and specifically instructed employees to: do not have Reveal this information to your customers.
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Facial recognition software has emerged as one of the most controversial aspects of the AI-powered surveillance era. In recent years, cities have issued broad bans on the technology while politicians have fought to regulate how police use it. Meanwhile, companies like Clearview AI have been hit with lawsuits and fines around the world for massive data privacy violations related to facial recognition technology.
The FTC’s latest findings regarding Rite Aid also shed light on the biases inherent in AI systems. For example, the FTC says Rite Aid failed to reduce risks to certain consumers due to race. The technology is “more likely to generate false positives in stores located in predominantly Black and Asian communities than in predominantly white communities.” Observation notes.
Additionally, the FTC said Rite Aid failed to test or measure the accuracy of its facial recognition system before or after its implementation.
in press releaseRite Aid said it was “pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC” but disagreed with the core of the allegations.
“The allegations relate to a pilot program for facial recognition technology that we implemented in a limited number of stores,” Rite Aid said in a statement. “Rite Aid stopped using the technology at this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC’s investigation into the company’s use of the technology began.”