How To Use Facial Recognition at Your Retail Store Responsibly?
Unfortunately, the general acceptance of face recognition door access technology has been hampered by the public’s impression of face recognition, which is heavily influenced by the media. It’s also crucial to remember that the majority of the unfavorable press around face recognition has been caused by the deployment of the technology by law enforcement or other government organizations in situations involving mass surveillance.
Some of this unfavorable impression has permeated the retail industry, which serves a very different purpose. Confusion and even vocal and sometimes mistaken criticism of the technology have resulted from this.
There are various petitions requesting the technology be prohibited, however, the justification offered is flawed: Some contend that biased and intrusive face recognition algorithms violate people’s privacy, while others point to specific examples of the careless application of the technology.
Advocates for a ban on face recognition software frequently cite isolated situations in which the incorrect person was recognized and then detained by police.
Even while face recognition turnstile or door is a strong and useful technique for danger identification, it cannot be the sole one. Because of this, we advise that when a known danger is detected and an alert is raised, security or service teams approach the person to make sure they are a good match, and then they proceed according to their store’s security policies for dealing with known bad actors. Facial recognition should not be used as a decision-making tool by security teams or law enforcement officers, but rather in conjunction with other investigation techniques.
Using face recognition technology, this kind of prejudice is just not possible. When a face from a live camera feed matches one on an algorithm’s watchlist, an alert is generated. There is no consideration of who could seem “strange.”
Guidelines for appropriate face recognition use:
Here are four actions you can take to make sure your shop uses face recognition technology responsibly.
Updating clients:
The key is communication. Store entrances should have signage that makes it very clear that face recognition technology is in use. Although these signs are required by law in some areas, such as New York City, we think it’s best practice to put them whenever the technology is present.
In the end, this banner has to make clear that face recognition is being used to detect known security risks, not to snoop on regular customers.
Blank database:
We don’t provide our clients with watchlists. Instead, we advise creating watchlists from scratch based on known convicts, past offenders, and potentially harmful ex-employees. In essence, lists of suspects for each retail outlet should be reasonable and constrained. As a result, unauthorized invasions of citizens’ privacy may be avoided, wrongful arrests can be decreased, and the public can have more faith in technology.
Data protection:
You must make sure that the biometric information you are gathering is secure from prying eyes and has the necessary protections in place to ward off intrusions.
Regarding data security, the following steps are advised:
- Removing outdated data regularly
- Information encryption
- All faces of individuals who aren’t specifically on an organization’s watchlist are effectively hidden by GDPR Mode. Only known dangers are shown when this feature is turned on; everyone else in the camera’s range of vision is obscured. Even further, privacy mode eliminates any detections of those who are not registered.
Operational carefulness:
Security teams and law enforcement officers must behave appropriately when a match is established and an alert is generated and decide whether any other potential matches should be looked into further before rushing to detain a specific person. Once more, it is not appropriate to judge someone’s guilt or innocence using technology.
Conclusion:
Facial recognition technology is quickly becoming a vital tool for businesses trying to reduce loss prevention while simultaneously maintaining the customer experience, as we argued in the first part of this blog.
But several widely held misunderstandings about the technology have slowed down acceptance. Consumers can have more faith and assurance that these cutting-edge technologies are made to improve the shopping experience and safeguard the business and its workers from financial and physical dangers if they have a better grasp of how they truly operate.
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