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from the There-are-two-eyes-in-"Rite-Aid" dept.
Reuters: Rite Aid monitored customers using facial recognition cameras
Over about eight years, the American drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp quietly added facial recognition systems to 200 stores across the United States, in one of the largest rollouts of such technology among retailers in the country, a Reuters investigation found.
In the hearts of New York and metro Los Angeles, Rite Aid deployed the technology in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods, according to a Reuters analysis. And for more than a year, the retailer used state-of-the-art facial recognition technology from a company with links to China and its authoritarian government.
In telephone and email exchanges with Reuters since February, Rite Aid confirmed the existence and breadth of its facial recognition program. The retailer defended the technology's use, saying it had nothing to do with race and was intended to deter theft and protect staff and customers from violence. Reuters found no evidence that Rite Aid's data was sent to China.
Last week, however, after Reuters sent its findings to the retailer, Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software. It later said all the cameras had been turned off.
It's a very long article:
Reuters pieced together how the company's initiative evolved, how the software has been used and how a recent vendor was linked to China, drawing on thousands of pages of internal documents from Rite Aid and its suppliers, as well as direct observations during store visits by Reuters journalists and interviews with more than 40 people familiar with the systems' deployment.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday July 29 2020, @10:25PM (3 children)
I thought this too as I read GP, however I think that the extra line of code is worth it to ensure that the joke is not lost on people. Your more efficient code implies a narrative where we tend to give white people a pass, versus GP's code which implies a narrative where all blacks are suspect. It's a notable distinction.
Sorry, I think I've over-analysed this. Perhaps I need to take up Sociology of Coding 101.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @12:48AM (2 children)
》 Sociology of Coding 101
You just, but the loonies in California just passed a law requiring all university students to take a course in social justice or ethnic studies every semester.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:37AM (1 child)
I thought half the point of college was to take the classes you needed/wanted and the mandatory classes were defined by the college you attended.
Mandatory requirements aside, if this is so important that they're going to legislate educational curriculum, I would expect them to do it for K-12 instead. Teaching people that skin color isn't all that important seems to be a bit late by the time people get to college.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:00PM
If you just want to get the skills themselves, you go to a 2-year/trade school; if you want to be a more well-rounded person, you go 4-year. Or at least that's what I've always heard.
I was actually somewhat interested in the Race, Class, and Gender course I took in college, up until the first week when I realized it was just going to be us sitting around while the teacher yelled at us about how everything was whitey's, and by extension ours personally, fault for the entire semester. Class and gender didn't really come up.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"