A surveillance expert has reassured Australians that there is no cause for alarm over facial recognition technology being rolled out across stores.
Auror founder and CEO Phil Thomson stressed that locals should not be concerned about fears of their privacy being violated.
His assurance comes after Bunnings sparked a backlash last month for signage informing shoppers about facial and license plate recognition technologies that may be in use.
Bunnings is the latest store to adopt the technology, with supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths increasing surveillance to reduce thefts.
Auror is a retail surveillance platform designed to deter shoplifting.
It raised concerns about privacy violations after an investigation by Oh dear which revealed that the Australian Federal Police had suspended use of the software pending review – with more than 100 of the company’s employees using it without considering the privacy implications.
However, Mr Thomson said Auror has been ‘mischaracterised’, with the platform built ‘from a privacy-by-design approach’.
40 percent of Australian retailers use Auror, a surveillance platform, to combat rising shoplifting (photo, stock image)
“(It’s) lumped together with different technologies,” he said News. com.
“We are a crime reporting platform, so after an event occurs, such as shoplifting or theft or fraud, a store employee will use it as their business tool to record what happened,” he said.
“We are not cameras, we are not CCTV. Privacy is very important.’
Anyone who has not been involved in a crime has nothing to worry about, Thomson added.
Auror was more secure than traditional methods retailers used to share information and footage with investigators, such as paper reports, USBs and CDs, with secure, encrypted access to approved police and other users, he argued.
The company’s website states that the software uses machine learning to aggregate data sources to investigate crimes — even to “prevent crime before it happens.”
“When we talk about crime prevention, they think it means prediction, but what it means is that stores know who is offended in the area,” the founder assured.
“We don’t predict where they’re going to occur, we’re just providing the information to the store network so that the retailer can let other nearby stores know that this criminal group has just been in the area and who to watch out for. for.’
Mr Thomson said Schouwer uses AI in data matching to help identify offenders, but it is always subject to human review.
The platform doesn’t have the ability to provide facial recognition, he added, but it can help provide appropriate alerts.
Social media users were outraged last month when an image of new signage appeared outside hardware superstore Bunnings warning customers that facial recognition and license plate recognition technologies may be in use (pictured)
“If that vehicle comes back to their store, who are the people associated with that vehicle and if they have used a weapon in the past,” he said.
“It changes the store manager’s approach to maybe not approach that person if they’ve been violent in the past.”
Social media users were outraged last month when an image of new signage appeared outside hardware superstore Bunnings warning customers that facial recognition and license plate recognition technologies may be in use.
The images “may be used and images shared with police for crime prevention and security purposes,” the sign read.
A former Bunnings employee shared that license plate scanning has been in effect for some time, adding that employees would be alerted when cars with reported thefts came in.
Most self-service checkouts have cameras installed to monitor shoppers, with artificial intelligence that can detect any inconsistencies or if the cart isn’t empty when the customer tries to pay (pictured)
Another user outwardly shared his concerns, writing, “just a glimpse of Australia’s incoming dystopian police state.”
Similar technologies are starting to appear in major supermarkets, with facial recognition cameras being installed across the country in Woolworths and Coles self-checkouts.
“Shop thefts have been on the rise lately… and the escalation is worrying for retailers,” MST retail analyst Craig Woolford told me. The Sydney Morning Herald.
Most self-service checkouts have cameras installed to monitor shoppers, with artificial intelligence that can detect any inconsistencies or if the cart isn’t empty when the customer tries to pay.
Mr Thomson concluded that platforms such as Auror are helping Australian retailers catch the thieves who return them $15 million a day in products that are stolen.