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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."
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.