7 ms·

Fighting back against biometric surveillance at Wegmans

210 points by ptorrone 9mo ago

ibejoeb 9mo ago
Business Reform on YouTube has some tests and reviews of this kind of gear. https://www.youtube.com/@businessreform/videos https://www.youtube.com/@businessreform/videos
Eufrat 9mo ago
I fear people will just get used to it just like other means of mass surveillance then wonder why they're being harassed with petty pretexts based on this data.
- heavyset_go 9mo ago
  This is already the case. The largest supermarket chain in my relatively wealthy area has had multiple cameras per aisle hanging about ~3 feet above your head + monitors in each aisle that show some, but not all, camera views, for over a decade now. Like ALPR cameras and now Flock cameras, no one cares and if you seem to care, people assume you're up to no good. This is the same culture that obsessively watches their Ring cameras and posts videos of people innocently walking down the street on the Nextdoor app because seeing the wrong people existing outside scares them.
  - potato3732842 9mo ago
    It's so weird to me that the stores in "nicer" areas seem to be on the forefront of this crap. I suspect it may have more to do with how local law enforcement handles shoplifting and theft generally than actual customer demographics.
    - heavyset_go 9mo ago
      > I suspect it may have more to do with how local law enforcement handles shoplifting and theft generally than actual customer demographics. They literally have nothing better to do so this, traffic enforcement and bothering kids who are trying to have a good time are the bulk of their duty, so I'd agree. > It's so weird to me that the stores in "nicer" areas seem to be on the forefront of this crap. I think a certain kind of person is comforted by surveillance. They perceive it, usually somewhat correctly from places of immense privilege, to be for their benefit and protection. They idea that it would be used against them, who are Good, and not against those people, who are Bad, is laughable to them if the concept even crosses their minds. Maybe you're one of those people if the cameras bother you, is the sentiment.
      - potato3732842 9mo ago
        What I was getting at is that these richer areas are pretty bimodal. They either support the shit out of the police or they think that enforcing petty theft laws are racist and both cases lead to more orwellian crap (the latter because the retailer has to basically serve up felony prosecutions on a silver platter if they want anything to happen).
- crazygringo 9mo ago
  Harassed how?
  - vmilner 9mo ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/06/shopper-facewatch-watchlist-39p-paracetamol-london https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/06/shopper-face...
dweinus 9mo ago
Good write up. Still I gotta say: a N95 mask will do the trick for cheap, with side bonus of also blocking flu & covid!
- plagiarist 9mo ago
  Why wouldn't they just do gait analysis?
  - brk 9mo ago
    Because that isn’t a thing.
    - SapporoChris 9mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Surveillance It may not be an issue for you at the moment, but outright dismissal will not keep you safe.
      - brk 9mo ago
        I work in this space and have for quite a while. There is no productized gait analysis software available to the commercial markets.
        nortlov 9mo ago
        Surely archived footage would be ripe for automated analysis once the tools are commercialized.
        brk 9mo ago
        Yes, in the same way stored passwords of today may eventually be broken by the quantum computing tools of tomorrow. The post I replied to implied that gait analysis is a viable alternative option. Gait analysis is not an option today, or this year, or even in the next decade. There is no data supporting the claim that it can be done reliably enough to get down to practical reidentification use cases.
AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
FWIW all of the obfuscation techniques make it easier to track you through the store. Then, unless you use a different card each time you go, or only use cash and never use the wegmans rewards stuff, then you pwn yourself immediately. Better to just avoid altogether, however every possible store is using this (I was pitching this to Target as early as 2016) and govt reps are active supporters of this tech. There aren’t really any alternatives that aren’t “grow your own food.” Even local retailers can use these systems and are increasingly cloud-SaaS
- spike021 9mo ago
  Was just about to make the same point. Even cash could be tricky if you got it from a bank because you'd be using your debit card and obviously the bank knows all your info.
  - AdieuToLogic 9mo ago
    > Even cash could be tricky if you got it from a bank because ... Cash would only be an issue if a merchant associated tender used in each sale with the customer. In this scenario, the business is actively working against their customer's interests and would need to be thought of as such. EDIT: Assume for a moment a merchant did try to associate tender used with each customer and that all cash transactions are made by people who did a cash withdrawal from only a bank (which is definitely not the case in real life). How would the merchant establish the identity of each person? Ask every bank within a 20 mile radius if one of their tellers or ATMs issued each note used? And what would happen to financial institutions which produced this information?
    - simoncion 9mo ago
      > Ask every bank within a 20 mile radius if one of their tellers or ATMs issued each note used? For at least ten years, Bank of America ATMs have accepted cash deposits. They claim that cash funds deposited at one of their ATMs are immediately available for withdrawal, so BofA must have very high confidence in the accuracy of their bill scanners. I expect that these bill scanners are not the exclusive property of BofA. From this information, a few things seem likely to me: 1) Now that you have those highly-reliable bill scanners, it wouldn't be much work to make them scan and report the serial numbers on each bill. 2) It wouldn't be much work to add those scanners for bills that leave the ATM. Given that the ATM knows from whose account the cash withdrawal is being made, that's the ATM arm of the automated surveillance system fairly well buttoned up. It has been ages since I've stepped inside a bank branch, but I remember tellers sometimes using bill counters to double-check their hand counts. If they still do that, then a bank simply orders the tellers to always use the counters and there's where you capture the serial numbers for teller-counter cash withdrawals. As for data distribution, just use data brokers. > And what would happen to financial institutions which produced this information? Nothing? It seems substantially in line with the spirit of lots of existing anti-money-laundering regulations.
epolanski 9mo ago
I think we're far past the point where you can avoid being tracked anywhere in the world, and that's even if you wear sunglasses, a hat, and you use no technology (no phone, etc). Israeli cyber security companies have long trained models capable of recognising anybody (mostly used at checkpoints to catch terrorists), even by lower resolution cameras and when the person tries camouflaging. Police in wales even openly admitted to using it to conduct mass surveillance "to find criminals". If you've taken an international flight, your face has been scanned, and you will be recognised and spotted wherever you go and there's a camera.
- duskdozer 9mo ago
  Maybe, but they're also incentivized to make people believe they are doing more than they are, and with higher accuracy, because it makes people give up entirely and make no effort to protect their privacy.
macinjosh 9mo ago
We need a startup to make those super realistic face masks easy to make and use. Celebrities could license their faces to make up for movies and tv being AI generated.
websiteapi 9mo ago
so even if you don't have your face scanned on the register, unless you're paying cash they'd still know who you are right? don't most people have passports? real ID is also a thing. if you're concerned about a hostile government wearing a mask at a grocery store isn't going to do anything sadly. not even counting things like gait analysis, security cameras or tracking your phone Katz v. United States is an interesting case if you're interested (tldr one thing the case implied is that if your actions are freely observable by others of the public there's no expectation of privacy). personally I think the only option these days is to push for very short retention policies governed by law such that use of information is inadmissible in a criminal situation (e.g. say a 1 week retention, they can't go scrubbing footage from months back to convict, wouldn't be allowed during discovery), and making it harder or illegal to share with other non-government entities. stopping collection I think is a ship that's sailed imo. it's pretty unlikely public or private surveillance (for supermarket like stores) will ever be made illegal. in fact I can't think of a country where it is. - as a side note, suggesting to switch to Whole Foods is hilarious. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, and you can look for yourself all the tracking they do https://www.reuters.com/legal/lawsuit-accuses-amazon-secretly-tracking-consumers-through-cellphones-2025-01-29/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/lawsuit-accuses-amazon-secretl...
- xp84 9mo ago
  > law such that use of information is inadmissible in a criminal situation (e.g. say a 1 week retention, they can't go scrubbing footage from months back to convict, Or, amazing life hack, don’t do crimes, on video or otherwise. Not saying there are no privacy concerns, but I WANT this used in court against criminals
  - websiteapi 9mo ago
    I don't disagree, but I don't think private companies should be able to both keep videos indefinitely and for those videos to be accessible to the government for arbitrary goals.
  - duskdozer 9mo ago
    Do you agree that all current laws are just and correct, and are you confident that nobody will ever come into power who wants to make illegal something you believe is just and right to do?
sam345 9mo ago
I don't see how you can enforce no face scanning if you allow security cameras.
- heavyset_go 9mo ago
  Make it illegal. Give rewards for anonymous tips that lead to prosecution like it already exists for IRS tax fraud tips.
  - ryandrake 9mo ago
    Americans will try anything to stop corporate wrongdoing--except making it illegal.
    - themafia 9mo ago
      American's do not have the power to make things illegal. We have a representative democracy. Why it fails to represent the will of the people has been a good debate for the past 30 years.
      - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
        We frequently won't even suggest it, at least on HN. Its always derided by "how will it be enforced? There are ways to evade it!". Always letting perfect be the enemy of good.
    - mlrtime 9mo ago
      Americans will try anything to stop shoplifting--except enforcing it.
  - potato3732842 9mo ago
    We haven't even tried to solve this any other way. Pitting people against each other should be a last, last, last, resort. Low trust is VERY expensive. It's asinine to introduce it to anywhere it doesn't already exist.
crazygringo 9mo ago
> Switch to stores with stronger privacy policies: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Food Bazaar have not announced biometric scanning. Just because they haven't announced it doesn't mean they're not using it. Honestly, I would just assume every grocery store has security cameras doing facial recognition to cross-reference and catch repeat shoplifters. All those security cameras are there for a reason.
- heavyset_go 9mo ago
  > Honestly, I would just assume every grocery store has security cameras doing facial recognition to cross-reference and catch repeat shoplifters. This is their purpose, they're used to build cases over time, instead of single instances of petty theft, until shoplifters can be charged with felonies when the cumulative amount that they stole reaches felony levels. I know of at least one chain that uses them to flag certain people to loss prevention or security when they enter the store, either because of shoplifting or because they were trespassed in the past.
  - beached_whale 9mo ago
    If only this was the only use and the data wasn't sold/used against people not committing crimes.
    - heavyset_go 9mo ago
      Yup, that was their initial pitch, now the data is further abused for profit. The data shouldn't exist in the first place, and neither should surveilled society.
      - beached_whale 9mo ago
        I don't think people grasp how much control over how they are viewed by the business/government world they lost/have. Also, dynamic pricing is a pleasant sounding name for price gouging.
    - 9mo ago
ipince 9mo ago
It's not only at groceries stores, it's everywhere. For example at TSA security line and (sometimes) when boarding flights at the gate. You can (and should) exercise your right to opt-out every single time, before that right is taken away. Omg I sound like Richard Stallman... anyway, he was right all along.
- Hnrobert42 9mo ago
  I used to always opt out at TSA checkpoints. Then I decided that of all places, the airport makes the most sense to use biometrics. I mean, a human comparing my face to my ID is functionally equivalent. What scares me about TSA using it is that it normalizes its use. Next it's at stadiums. Then Wegmans. If it would stop at airports, then I would be okay with it.
  - fc417fc802 9mo ago
    > a human comparing my face to my ID is functionally equivalent Not at all? A human isn't committing you to long term memory let alone entering a detailed sketch into a centralized database.
    - Hnrobert42 9mo ago
      No. TSA deletes the information it captures after 24 hours. https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions/does-tsa-protect-all-data-eg-photos-collected-during-testing https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions/does-t...
      - ibejoeb 9mo ago
        Regardless of the fact that they can simply lie to you, it doesn't say that. The question is "Does TSA protect all data (e.g., photos)...?" What does protect mean? The stated common case is that a photo is ephemeral and is removed (from where?) after it is used. Now, they're using it for facial recognition. They didn't get a facial recognition system by deleting photos, so we know based on the premise that some representation of the data in the photo (your likeness) exists in persistent form. But that's just generous reading, anyway. There are so many ambiguities that it's not really worth the trouble to attempt any rigorous analysis of it. "In rare instances TSA will collect and temporarily retain photos and data..." How rare? Doesn't matter: then what happens? "...data collection mode events are limited in time and place..." Damn unrelenting spacetime. "TSA’s facial comparison technologies adhere to DHS and TSA cybersecurity requirements." Restatement of the problem.
hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
Why does anyone need to opt out at all? You don’t need to opt out of being punched in the face when going out in public, why do you need to opt out of unwanted, unmandated tracking when going shopping for essential items?
- Alupis 9mo ago
  Getting punched in the face vs. walking into a private store that has a type of surveillance you disagree with are entirely different things...
  - themafia 9mo ago
    These are not private stores. They are open to the public. This comes with several other requirements that a truly "private store" would not have to follow. There is a massive body of law which defines this.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
      Even if the law didn’t, humans have a basic right to privacy and anonymity from for-profit entities when completing life essential tasks. We’ve just become so cooked that it’s not even considered a problem for most, and not mandated by law to the extent that it should be.
    - Alupis 9mo ago
      "Being open to the public" doesn't mean they cannot use surveillance. They also have the right to ask you to leave, enforce clothing standards, etc. It's a private business - and a private building. They have a lot of rights about what happens within the premises. If you disagree, you can choose to shop somewhere else. It's literally that simple.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
        Sounds very authoritarian. Essential services while privatised are still essential. It’s awful to see how many people fail to see that. Edit: and let’s not forget that you have not signed a contract which gives them permission to abuse your private information. ‘By entering this store you agree to’ signs don’t mean shit.
sublinear 9mo ago
I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned that almost 25% of the entire US workforce is remote and this has dramatically moved shopping over to online delivery. In-person grocery store trips mean something else now for tens of millions of people, so store security to also has to change with that big of a shift in demographics.
- squigz 9mo ago
  Are you suggesting that a shift to online shopping led to a new demographic going to grocery stores in person? I would have expected that demographic would have went to grocery stores all along. What has changed that introduced a new demographic? And why does it mean security has to change?
  - sublinear 9mo ago
    Overall foot traffic is down in stores. People who shop online don't go to the store as often, and when they do they expect a worthwhile experience and to probably spend more. They're going to the grocery stores with the craft beer on tap, proper restaurants, etc. They know their online shopping is already monitored and cashless, so it's only a minor annoyance to see that in person. Not many are going to walk away just because of that. Those nicer stores are also in the wealthier neighborhoods where the expectation is safety while they spend extra time with the shiny new amenities in a smaller more peaceful crowd. The people who avoid online and delivery may not have a choice and are more price sensitive or likely to shoplift, so those other stores also have to increase security. I'm saying that people have become segregated. The suburbanite middle and upper classes don't "stop by on the way home from work" anymore and they aren't leaving home just to shop unless it's worth the hassle. They expect much higher levels of convenience and safety than ever before. Increased security everywhere makes sense.
- AdieuToLogic 9mo ago
  > I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned that almost 25% of the entire US workforce is remote and this has dramatically moved shopping over to online delivery. How does surveillance prevalent with online delivery services substantially differ from biometric ones? > In-person grocery store trips mean something else now for tens of millions of people, so store security to also has to change with that big of a shift in demographics. This just doesn't make sense. Are you asserting that people going into grocery stores now are more likely to commit theft due to those using online delivery services no longer engaging in on-premise shopping? Or is it your premise that people who typically use online delivery services only go into grocery stores to steal?
kroger1 9mo ago
How do I get Kroger to not scan my face? All these grocer companies are doing this same market analysis seemingly without giving good faith notice. I guess they are not legally required to inform their targets. It seems there needs to be some improvement in consumer protection laws. Dunnhumby and 84.51° are thick into this "taking".
Simulacra 9mo ago
I don't think there is any alternative to this. I assume every corporation is filming me in their stores, building shopper profiles, that granularly identify me in every conceivable way. I am not surprised at all that Wegmans is taking a picture of my face. It's good to know, it's good for this to be in the news, but I can't imagine any grocery store, not taking advantage of video surveillance, profiling, all of that stuff if it will help them sell more.
PaulHoule 9mo ago
Kinda funny. Back in 2000 I was at Wegmans and was offended when the head security guard followed my freaky hippie friend around so after that I started to mess with him. Like I noticed he had a spot where he liked to stand and surveil people going in and out of the store and I would stand in his spot so he couldn't have it, or I would conspicuously follow him around the store. I signed up for an enumerator job at the US Census and a bunch of us turned up at the workforce development office where we were administered something like an IQ test. I disagreed but I remembered someone saying "the questions are so hard!" They called me up and offered me a supervisor position which I didn't take because it seemed like a tiny amount of extra money for a lot more trouble. I got called back maybe a week later with an offer of a regular position which I took. I show up for work and my supervisor was... the head security guard from Wegmans! He turned out to be a pretty nice guy and liked working for him! The job had plenty of other misadventures like the way we had a plan for counting homeless people that you thought would have worked but we actually found zero homeless people (funny I would see them everywhere if I wasn't wearing my enumerator badge) Or how a woman who was working with us figured out we could save many hours of work by buying $20 worth of stickers, something there was no budget for but we decided there was nothing wrong with her just billing another 2 hours. Or how the students at the black living center mostly didn't fill out their census forms but instead of pestering them to fill them out we got a printout of all the students from the bursar's office that didn't have race on it and sent it on to the processing center -- so blacks got undercounted.
ungreased0675 9mo ago
I saw Adafruit and was anticipating a clever gadget announcement. Suppose some problems still need to solved the old fashioned way.
- SamInTheShell 9mo ago
  Low tech means accessible. A cowboy hat works better.
probably_wrong 9mo ago
> Ask Wegmans directly to exclude you from facial recognition - Send an email to their privacy team The only way in which I can see this going is by Wegmans answering "please send a high-res copy of your face so we can add it to the list of faces for which we won't keep records", at which point I'm not sure who's the winner anymore.
chaostheory 9mo ago
This is one of the side effects of the shoplifting trends in recent years.
DetectDefect 9mo ago
"Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue" The irony of being fingerprinted to read a blog about fingerprinting is apparently lost on Adafruit.
- ptorrone 9mo ago
  you're seeing a script block from cloudflare’s bot protection. we’re actively working to reduce third-party surveillance on our systems, including evaluating less invasive alternatives to aggressive bot mitigation. if you’ve got ideas or want to help us test better solutions, we’re totally open — reach out. and what's that? oh right! we’re one of the few sites that still respects do not track — and always have. full text is available via rss (no js, no cookies): https://blog.adafruit.com/rss https://blog.adafruit.com/rss

210 points by ptorrone 9mo ago

Business Reform on YouTube has some tests and reviews of this kind of gear. https://www.youtube.com/@businessreform/videos https://www.youtube.com/@businessreform/videos

Eufrat 9mo ago

I fear people will just get used to it just like other means of mass surveillance then wonder why they're being harassed with petty pretexts based on this data.

heavyset_go 9mo ago
This is already the case. The largest supermarket chain in my relatively wealthy area has had multiple cameras per aisle hanging about ~3 feet above your head + monitors in each aisle that show some, but not all, camera views, for over a decade now. Like ALPR cameras and now Flock cameras, no one cares and if you seem to care, people assume you're up to no good. This is the same culture that obsessively watches their Ring cameras and posts videos of people innocently walking down the street on the Nextdoor app because seeing the wrong people existing outside scares them.
- potato3732842 9mo ago
  It's so weird to me that the stores in "nicer" areas seem to be on the forefront of this crap. I suspect it may have more to do with how local law enforcement handles shoplifting and theft generally than actual customer demographics.
  - heavyset_go 9mo ago
    > I suspect it may have more to do with how local law enforcement handles shoplifting and theft generally than actual customer demographics. They literally have nothing better to do so this, traffic enforcement and bothering kids who are trying to have a good time are the bulk of their duty, so I'd agree. > It's so weird to me that the stores in "nicer" areas seem to be on the forefront of this crap. I think a certain kind of person is comforted by surveillance. They perceive it, usually somewhat correctly from places of immense privilege, to be for their benefit and protection. They idea that it would be used against them, who are Good, and not against those people, who are Bad, is laughable to them if the concept even crosses their minds. Maybe you're one of those people if the cameras bother you, is the sentiment.
    - potato3732842 9mo ago
      What I was getting at is that these richer areas are pretty bimodal. They either support the shit out of the police or they think that enforcing petty theft laws are racist and both cases lead to more orwellian crap (the latter because the retailer has to basically serve up felony prosecutions on a silver platter if they want anything to happen).
crazygringo 9mo ago
Harassed how?
- vmilner 9mo ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/06/shopper-facewatch-watchlist-39p-paracetamol-london https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/06/shopper-face...

dweinus 9mo ago

Good write up. Still I gotta say: a N95 mask will do the trick for cheap, with side bonus of also blocking flu & covid!

plagiarist 9mo ago
Why wouldn't they just do gait analysis?
- brk 9mo ago
  Because that isn’t a thing.
  - SapporoChris 9mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Surveillance It may not be an issue for you at the moment, but outright dismissal will not keep you safe.
    - brk 9mo ago
      I work in this space and have for quite a while. There is no productized gait analysis software available to the commercial markets.
      - nortlov 9mo ago
        Surely archived footage would be ripe for automated analysis once the tools are commercialized.
        brk 9mo ago
        Yes, in the same way stored passwords of today may eventually be broken by the quantum computing tools of tomorrow. The post I replied to implied that gait analysis is a viable alternative option. Gait analysis is not an option today, or this year, or even in the next decade. There is no data supporting the claim that it can be done reliably enough to get down to practical reidentification use cases.

AndrewKemendo 9mo ago

FWIW all of the obfuscation techniques make it easier to track you through the store. Then, unless you use a different card each time you go, or only use cash and never use the wegmans rewards stuff, then you pwn yourself immediately. Better to just avoid altogether, however every possible store is using this (I was pitching this to Target as early as 2016) and govt reps are active supporters of this tech. There aren’t really any alternatives that aren’t “grow your own food.” Even local retailers can use these systems and are increasingly cloud-SaaS

spike021 9mo ago
Was just about to make the same point. Even cash could be tricky if you got it from a bank because you'd be using your debit card and obviously the bank knows all your info.
- AdieuToLogic 9mo ago
  > Even cash could be tricky if you got it from a bank because ... Cash would only be an issue if a merchant associated tender used in each sale with the customer. In this scenario, the business is actively working against their customer's interests and would need to be thought of as such. EDIT: Assume for a moment a merchant did try to associate tender used with each customer and that all cash transactions are made by people who did a cash withdrawal from only a bank (which is definitely not the case in real life). How would the merchant establish the identity of each person? Ask every bank within a 20 mile radius if one of their tellers or ATMs issued each note used? And what would happen to financial institutions which produced this information?
  - simoncion 9mo ago
    > Ask every bank within a 20 mile radius if one of their tellers or ATMs issued each note used? For at least ten years, Bank of America ATMs have accepted cash deposits. They claim that cash funds deposited at one of their ATMs are immediately available for withdrawal, so BofA must have very high confidence in the accuracy of their bill scanners. I expect that these bill scanners are not the exclusive property of BofA. From this information, a few things seem likely to me: 1) Now that you have those highly-reliable bill scanners, it wouldn't be much work to make them scan and report the serial numbers on each bill. 2) It wouldn't be much work to add those scanners for bills that leave the ATM. Given that the ATM knows from whose account the cash withdrawal is being made, that's the ATM arm of the automated surveillance system fairly well buttoned up. It has been ages since I've stepped inside a bank branch, but I remember tellers sometimes using bill counters to double-check their hand counts. If they still do that, then a bank simply orders the tellers to always use the counters and there's where you capture the serial numbers for teller-counter cash withdrawals. As for data distribution, just use data brokers. > And what would happen to financial institutions which produced this information? Nothing? It seems substantially in line with the spirit of lots of existing anti-money-laundering regulations.

epolanski 9mo ago

I think we're far past the point where you can avoid being tracked anywhere in the world, and that's even if you wear sunglasses, a hat, and you use no technology (no phone, etc). Israeli cyber security companies have long trained models capable of recognising anybody (mostly used at checkpoints to catch terrorists), even by lower resolution cameras and when the person tries camouflaging. Police in wales even openly admitted to using it to conduct mass surveillance "to find criminals". If you've taken an international flight, your face has been scanned, and you will be recognised and spotted wherever you go and there's a camera.

duskdozer 9mo ago
Maybe, but they're also incentivized to make people believe they are doing more than they are, and with higher accuracy, because it makes people give up entirely and make no effort to protect their privacy.

macinjosh 9mo ago

We need a startup to make those super realistic face masks easy to make and use. Celebrities could license their faces to make up for movies and tv being AI generated.

websiteapi 9mo ago

so even if you don't have your face scanned on the register, unless you're paying cash they'd still know who you are right? don't most people have passports? real ID is also a thing. if you're concerned about a hostile government wearing a mask at a grocery store isn't going to do anything sadly. not even counting things like gait analysis, security cameras or tracking your phone Katz v. United States is an interesting case if you're interested (tldr one thing the case implied is that if your actions are freely observable by others of the public there's no expectation of privacy). personally I think the only option these days is to push for very short retention policies governed by law such that use of information is inadmissible in a criminal situation (e.g. say a 1 week retention, they can't go scrubbing footage from months back to convict, wouldn't be allowed during discovery), and making it harder or illegal to share with other non-government entities. stopping collection I think is a ship that's sailed imo. it's pretty unlikely public or private surveillance (for supermarket like stores) will ever be made illegal. in fact I can't think of a country where it is. - as a side note, suggesting to switch to Whole Foods is hilarious. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, and you can look for yourself all the tracking they do https://www.reuters.com/legal/lawsuit-accuses-amazon-secretly-tracking-consumers-through-cellphones-2025-01-29/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/lawsuit-accuses-amazon-secretl...

xp84 9mo ago
> law such that use of information is inadmissible in a criminal situation (e.g. say a 1 week retention, they can't go scrubbing footage from months back to convict, Or, amazing life hack, don’t do crimes, on video or otherwise. Not saying there are no privacy concerns, but I WANT this used in court against criminals
- websiteapi 9mo ago
  I don't disagree, but I don't think private companies should be able to both keep videos indefinitely and for those videos to be accessible to the government for arbitrary goals.
- duskdozer 9mo ago
  Do you agree that all current laws are just and correct, and are you confident that nobody will ever come into power who wants to make illegal something you believe is just and right to do?

sam345 9mo ago

I don't see how you can enforce no face scanning if you allow security cameras.

heavyset_go 9mo ago
Make it illegal. Give rewards for anonymous tips that lead to prosecution like it already exists for IRS tax fraud tips.
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  Americans will try anything to stop corporate wrongdoing--except making it illegal.
  - themafia 9mo ago
    American's do not have the power to make things illegal. We have a representative democracy. Why it fails to represent the will of the people has been a good debate for the past 30 years.
    - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
      We frequently won't even suggest it, at least on HN. Its always derided by "how will it be enforced? There are ways to evade it!". Always letting perfect be the enemy of good.
  - mlrtime 9mo ago
    Americans will try anything to stop shoplifting--except enforcing it.
- potato3732842 9mo ago
  We haven't even tried to solve this any other way. Pitting people against each other should be a last, last, last, resort. Low trust is VERY expensive. It's asinine to introduce it to anywhere it doesn't already exist.

crazygringo 9mo ago

> Switch to stores with stronger privacy policies: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Food Bazaar have not announced biometric scanning. Just because they haven't announced it doesn't mean they're not using it. Honestly, I would just assume every grocery store has security cameras doing facial recognition to cross-reference and catch repeat shoplifters. All those security cameras are there for a reason.

heavyset_go 9mo ago
> Honestly, I would just assume every grocery store has security cameras doing facial recognition to cross-reference and catch repeat shoplifters. This is their purpose, they're used to build cases over time, instead of single instances of petty theft, until shoplifters can be charged with felonies when the cumulative amount that they stole reaches felony levels. I know of at least one chain that uses them to flag certain people to loss prevention or security when they enter the store, either because of shoplifting or because they were trespassed in the past.
- beached_whale 9mo ago
  If only this was the only use and the data wasn't sold/used against people not committing crimes.
  - heavyset_go 9mo ago
    Yup, that was their initial pitch, now the data is further abused for profit. The data shouldn't exist in the first place, and neither should surveilled society.
    - beached_whale 9mo ago
      I don't think people grasp how much control over how they are viewed by the business/government world they lost/have. Also, dynamic pricing is a pleasant sounding name for price gouging.
  - 9mo ago

ipince 9mo ago

It's not only at groceries stores, it's everywhere. For example at TSA security line and (sometimes) when boarding flights at the gate. You can (and should) exercise your right to opt-out every single time, before that right is taken away. Omg I sound like Richard Stallman... anyway, he was right all along.

Hnrobert42 9mo ago
I used to always opt out at TSA checkpoints. Then I decided that of all places, the airport makes the most sense to use biometrics. I mean, a human comparing my face to my ID is functionally equivalent. What scares me about TSA using it is that it normalizes its use. Next it's at stadiums. Then Wegmans. If it would stop at airports, then I would be okay with it.
- fc417fc802 9mo ago
  > a human comparing my face to my ID is functionally equivalent Not at all? A human isn't committing you to long term memory let alone entering a detailed sketch into a centralized database.
  - Hnrobert42 9mo ago
    No. TSA deletes the information it captures after 24 hours. https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions/does-tsa-protect-all-data-eg-photos-collected-during-testing https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions/does-t...
    - ibejoeb 9mo ago
      Regardless of the fact that they can simply lie to you, it doesn't say that. The question is "Does TSA protect all data (e.g., photos)...?" What does protect mean? The stated common case is that a photo is ephemeral and is removed (from where?) after it is used. Now, they're using it for facial recognition. They didn't get a facial recognition system by deleting photos, so we know based on the premise that some representation of the data in the photo (your likeness) exists in persistent form. But that's just generous reading, anyway. There are so many ambiguities that it's not really worth the trouble to attempt any rigorous analysis of it. "In rare instances TSA will collect and temporarily retain photos and data..." How rare? Doesn't matter: then what happens? "...data collection mode events are limited in time and place..." Damn unrelenting spacetime. "TSA’s facial comparison technologies adhere to DHS and TSA cybersecurity requirements." Restatement of the problem.

hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago

Why does anyone need to opt out at all? You don’t need to opt out of being punched in the face when going out in public, why do you need to opt out of unwanted, unmandated tracking when going shopping for essential items?

Alupis 9mo ago
Getting punched in the face vs. walking into a private store that has a type of surveillance you disagree with are entirely different things...
- themafia 9mo ago
  These are not private stores. They are open to the public. This comes with several other requirements that a truly "private store" would not have to follow. There is a massive body of law which defines this.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
    Even if the law didn’t, humans have a basic right to privacy and anonymity from for-profit entities when completing life essential tasks. We’ve just become so cooked that it’s not even considered a problem for most, and not mandated by law to the extent that it should be.
  - Alupis 9mo ago
    "Being open to the public" doesn't mean they cannot use surveillance. They also have the right to ask you to leave, enforce clothing standards, etc. It's a private business - and a private building. They have a lot of rights about what happens within the premises. If you disagree, you can choose to shop somewhere else. It's literally that simple.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
      Sounds very authoritarian. Essential services while privatised are still essential. It’s awful to see how many people fail to see that. Edit: and let’s not forget that you have not signed a contract which gives them permission to abuse your private information. ‘By entering this store you agree to’ signs don’t mean shit.

sublinear 9mo ago

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned that almost 25% of the entire US workforce is remote and this has dramatically moved shopping over to online delivery. In-person grocery store trips mean something else now for tens of millions of people, so store security to also has to change with that big of a shift in demographics.

squigz 9mo ago
Are you suggesting that a shift to online shopping led to a new demographic going to grocery stores in person? I would have expected that demographic would have went to grocery stores all along. What has changed that introduced a new demographic? And why does it mean security has to change?
- sublinear 9mo ago
  Overall foot traffic is down in stores. People who shop online don't go to the store as often, and when they do they expect a worthwhile experience and to probably spend more. They're going to the grocery stores with the craft beer on tap, proper restaurants, etc. They know their online shopping is already monitored and cashless, so it's only a minor annoyance to see that in person. Not many are going to walk away just because of that. Those nicer stores are also in the wealthier neighborhoods where the expectation is safety while they spend extra time with the shiny new amenities in a smaller more peaceful crowd. The people who avoid online and delivery may not have a choice and are more price sensitive or likely to shoplift, so those other stores also have to increase security. I'm saying that people have become segregated. The suburbanite middle and upper classes don't "stop by on the way home from work" anymore and they aren't leaving home just to shop unless it's worth the hassle. They expect much higher levels of convenience and safety than ever before. Increased security everywhere makes sense.
AdieuToLogic 9mo ago
> I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned that almost 25% of the entire US workforce is remote and this has dramatically moved shopping over to online delivery. How does surveillance prevalent with online delivery services substantially differ from biometric ones? > In-person grocery store trips mean something else now for tens of millions of people, so store security to also has to change with that big of a shift in demographics. This just doesn't make sense. Are you asserting that people going into grocery stores now are more likely to commit theft due to those using online delivery services no longer engaging in on-premise shopping? Or is it your premise that people who typically use online delivery services only go into grocery stores to steal?

kroger1 9mo ago

How do I get Kroger to not scan my face? All these grocer companies are doing this same market analysis seemingly without giving good faith notice. I guess they are not legally required to inform their targets. It seems there needs to be some improvement in consumer protection laws. Dunnhumby and 84.51° are thick into this "taking".

Simulacra 9mo ago

I don't think there is any alternative to this. I assume every corporation is filming me in their stores, building shopper profiles, that granularly identify me in every conceivable way. I am not surprised at all that Wegmans is taking a picture of my face. It's good to know, it's good for this to be in the news, but I can't imagine any grocery store, not taking advantage of video surveillance, profiling, all of that stuff if it will help them sell more.

PaulHoule 9mo ago

Kinda funny. Back in 2000 I was at Wegmans and was offended when the head security guard followed my freaky hippie friend around so after that I started to mess with him. Like I noticed he had a spot where he liked to stand and surveil people going in and out of the store and I would stand in his spot so he couldn't have it, or I would conspicuously follow him around the store. I signed up for an enumerator job at the US Census and a bunch of us turned up at the workforce development office where we were administered something like an IQ test. I disagreed but I remembered someone saying "the questions are so hard!" They called me up and offered me a supervisor position which I didn't take because it seemed like a tiny amount of extra money for a lot more trouble. I got called back maybe a week later with an offer of a regular position which I took. I show up for work and my supervisor was... the head security guard from Wegmans! He turned out to be a pretty nice guy and liked working for him! The job had plenty of other misadventures like the way we had a plan for counting homeless people that you thought would have worked but we actually found zero homeless people (funny I would see them everywhere if I wasn't wearing my enumerator badge) Or how a woman who was working with us figured out we could save many hours of work by buying $20 worth of stickers, something there was no budget for but we decided there was nothing wrong with her just billing another 2 hours. Or how the students at the black living center mostly didn't fill out their census forms but instead of pestering them to fill them out we got a printout of all the students from the bursar's office that didn't have race on it and sent it on to the processing center -- so blacks got undercounted.

ungreased0675 9mo ago

I saw Adafruit and was anticipating a clever gadget announcement. Suppose some problems still need to solved the old fashioned way.

SamInTheShell 9mo ago
Low tech means accessible. A cowboy hat works better.

probably_wrong 9mo ago

> Ask Wegmans directly to exclude you from facial recognition - Send an email to their privacy team The only way in which I can see this going is by Wegmans answering "please send a high-res copy of your face so we can add it to the list of faces for which we won't keep records", at which point I'm not sure who's the winner anymore.

chaostheory 9mo ago

This is one of the side effects of the shoplifting trends in recent years.

DetectDefect 9mo ago

"Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue" The irony of being fingerprinted to read a blog about fingerprinting is apparently lost on Adafruit.

ptorrone 9mo ago
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