Hundreds of stores from Walgreens to Macy’s are silently deploying facial recognition technology to spy on shoppers (and it’s legal in most states)

Major US retailers are already using facial recognition cameras to spy on shoppers, an activist group has warned.

The technology – typically associated with authoritarian regimes such as China – is used to identify shoplifters and deliver “personalized” ads.

Caitlin Sealy-George, of anti-facial recognition campaign group Fight for the Future, told DailyMail.com its use had been “expanding” silently for several years.

Walgreens and Macy’s are among the largest retailers adopting this technology, deploying it in hundreds of stores across the country.

This is not limited to America, but Britain is also adopting this technology.

George warned that the cameras are not only being used to catch persistent thieves, but also to monitor shoppers and analyze their emotions, so stores can deliver personalized advertisements on in-store screens.

“A lot of stores say they use it to identify shoplifters and as a tool to deter shoplifting,” she said.

“But it’s also used for marketing purposes, they collect information about shoppers and see what they’re buying and what they’re not buying — and they use AI tools to analyze shoppers’ emotions and figure out what kind of ads to target to them.”

The global market for facial recognition technology is expected to reach $7 billion by 2024, according to research by Thales Group.

George said there is no federal law regulating the use of facial recognition technology – and most US states do not have laws prohibiting its use.

Some states, including Washington, Vermont and Maine, have regulated the use of this technology.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams encouraged retailers to use technology to fight crime.

“There are a few states and communities that have addressed the use of this technology, but generally there is no policy on it, so stores are able to move forward at their own pace,” George said.

Stores use technology to achieve results similar to the data you get from membership cards – but without anyone signing up to the card system.

Companies like ALFI boast of their ability to use facial recognition and artificial intelligence to “detect” people’s emotions while they’re standing in a store — and serve them personalized ads.

ALFI also claims that its technology, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze camera images, can accurately detect age and ethnicity.

The company said: “ALFI’s advertising platform can transition between ads depending on the person in front of the screen.

“For digital out-of-home advertising, this is unheard of. ALFI can be installed on any device with an internet connection and a camera, providing personalized content and ads to anyone looking at the screen.

The company claims that no data is stored in its devices, so customer privacy is maintained.

Walgreens is an enthusiast of the technology, with 750 stores using facial recognition in 2021 to deliver personalized ads based on shoppers’ appearance.

At Walgreens, video screens above refrigerators show ads personalized to the user, based on data such as gender and age.

George said cameras in stores are used to “assess information about you” and collect information about the ad that will be shown to convince someone to open the fridge.

“We have been working to stop the use of facial recognition on a really large scale in terms of government and law enforcement use, as well as private corporate entities that use it in public spaces,” she said. We’ve had some success targeting individual spaces in order to put a lot of public pressure on them to get them to stop.

The campaign has seen success in convincing events such as music festivals to avoid using facial recognition technology

“When we saw technology spreading into stores, we thought this could be a space to do that,” she said. One problem is that since most places don’t have laws covering this, they don’t have to tell you if they use it.

“We’ve found that a lot of the retailers we’ve reached out to don’t really want to engage with us about this, because I think they’re concerned about the negative public reaction, so they prefer to do it quietly.” Instead of advertising its use.

A Buzzfeed investigation in 2020 found leaked documents indicating that Macy’s used software from the controversial company ClearView AI that matched faces to a database obtained from the web.

Macy’s has faced lawsuits over its alleged use of ClearView AI facial recognition technology.

“We reached out to Macy’s and they said very adamantly, ‘Yes, we use facial recognition and we have no plans to stop it,'” George said. “But part of the problem we’ve had is that a lot of retailers don’t really want to advertise their use.’

For average consumers, there’s no opportunity to look up a store’s privacy policies — which is why Fight for the Future maintains a list, George said

“For anyone who goes to the grocery store, people can’t go online and look up all the store’s privacy policies, and every time they need to run out and get something, it’s ridiculous.” That’s why we’re trying to increase understanding about this issue.

George said many small Mom and Pop stores have been quietly purchasing facial recognition technology, and she believes store owners are trying to deal with shoplifting on their own, due to a lack of support from police.

“A lot of what we’re seeing is that there’s a lot of fear of shoplifting. A lot of these stores don’t have the wiggle room to lose revenue because of this. And then law enforcement is also not doing anything,” George said.

“The reality is that any time there is mass surveillance of a community, it is used to police people.”