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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 14 2021, @08:01AM   Printer-friendly

7-Eleven breached customer privacy by collecting facial imagery without consent:

In Australia, the country's information commissioner has found that 7-Eleven breached customers' privacy by collecting their sensitive biometric information without adequate notice or consent.

From June 2020 to August 2021, 7-Eleven conducted surveys that required customers to fill out information on tablets with built-in cameras. These tablets, which were installed in 700 stores, captured customers' facial images at two points during the survey-taking process -- when the individual first engaged with the tablet, and after they completed the survey.

After becoming aware of this activity in July last year, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) commended an investigation into 7-Eleven's survey.

During the investigation [PDF], the OAIC found 7-Eleven stored the facial images on tablets for around 20 seconds before uploading them to a secure server hosted in Australia within the Microsoft Azure infrastructure. The facial images were then retained on the server, as an algorithmic representation, for seven days to allow 7-Eleven to identify and correct any issues, and reprocess survey responses, the convenience store giant claimed.

The facial images were uploaded to the server as algorithmic representations, or "faceprints", that were then compared with other faceprints to exclude responses that 7-Eleven believed may not be genuine.

7-Eleven also used the personal information to understand the demographic profile of customers who completed the survey, the OAIC said.

[...] 7-Eleven has also been ordered to destroy all the faceprints it collected.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 14 2021, @08:11AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 14 2021, @08:11AM (#1186919) Journal

    No worries, Mate. This decision will soon be overturned, and Corporate Oz will continue to collect whatever information it wants to collect.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @03:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @03:38PM (#1186997)

      Convenience stores and gas stations are run by a shoddy franchise model in Australia.

      I don't know whether said businesses are held in higher regard in its home country but the exploited forrign worker stereotype of Apu on the Simpsons doesn't seem too far from the truth.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @10:49AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @10:49AM (#1186932)

    "7-Eleven has also been ordered to destroy all the faceprints it collected."

    After they copy the database to another numbered company or affiliate who is not in the order to destroy said data.

    Good Luck putting the Genie back in the bottle.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 14 2021, @02:02PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 14 2021, @02:02PM (#1186970) Journal

      7-Eleven should have been more smarter enough to do this through a separate contractor.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday October 14 2021, @11:14AM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Thursday October 14 2021, @11:14AM (#1186936)

    But why? I can't find anywhere in the article why they needed the "faceprint" (interesting new word). So it's some kind of survey they ask customers to fill out. What would the need be for a "faceprint" (or the algorithmic representation of the customers face)? It's not needed to build a demographic profile of their customers. You don't collect and store 1,6 million "faceprints" (and surveys) just cause it's so much fun, it's not an issue of storage space tho as that is still trivial since they didn't actually store the image.

    Right they claim to have gotten consent from the people taking part in the survey so now it's ok. Right. Without having ever seen said survey I can more or less guarantee it was a tiny little text or sentence burried in a wall of text that you couldn't skip but had to accept to proceed. There was probably also a gigantic green button that said OK or ACCEPT or something and people just click those instinctively and even more so if there is some kind of "reward" like a free candy bar or a big gulp or shrimp bbq flavored kangeroo jerky (or whatever they sell at 7-11 downunder).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @12:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @12:01PM (#1186944)

      > "faceprint" (interesting new word)

      Two things came to mind--

              Inking up your face (like inking a finger for fingerprint, but with finger paint or face paint) and then rolling your face against paper. I've seen art students doing things this.

              What is left on the ground after a bicycle accident (er, no, maybe this one is a "faceplant"?)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @07:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @07:45PM (#1187090)

      My guess is that they were using it to weed out the real responses from the spam/duplicate/etc responses.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday October 14 2021, @01:11PM

    by iWantToKeepAnon (686) on Thursday October 14 2021, @01:11PM (#1186956) Homepage Journal

    > 7 -Eleven has also been ordered to destroy all the faceprints it collected

    How about destroy the data collected illegally from the "faceprint"? Color, race, gender, etc... if it was processed from the data [and not directly collected] then that should be illegal too. Chain-of-ownership type thing.

    --
    "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @01:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @01:45PM (#1186960)

    This data gathering has been allowed to go on for so long that it has been normalized. Now that regular data like name, sex, address, phone number, and all your purchases is normal to collect, why not add this? You'd have to tear out one HELL of a lot of data gathering practices to undo this constant escalation. Could modern economies handle that change?

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @03:38PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @03:38PM (#1186996)

    Are you carrying a bow and arrow?
    Are you a radicalized Muslim?

    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday October 14 2021, @05:21PM

      by looorg (578) on Thursday October 14 2021, @05:21PM (#1187027)

      It wasn't a 7-Eleven. It was COOP or COOP Extra. The same company that got super hacked for a week earlier this year. Perhaps he objected to all the pork they sell. Who knows. A danish muslim convert living on Norway attacking old ladies in a convenient store. Its' not exactly Breivik levels of planning and execution.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @05:43PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @05:43PM (#1187044)

    Here is a copy of their ID data:

    "Ape, ape, potato, potato, potato, ape, potato, potato...."

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @06:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14 2021, @06:24PM (#1187065)
      Why do you troll as an AC but post under your user name? Afraid of the karma that goes with being a doucebag?
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