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Shops and retailers are taking over where street cameras left off, watching shoppers' every move.
According to a 2015 survey of 150 retail executives from IT services firm Computer Services Corporation, a quarter of all British shops and 59% of fashion retailers use facial recognition software. Such technology is vital as offline stores attempt to keep up with online retailers, said Duncan Mann, chief operating officer at retail analysis firm Hoxton Analytics. "Online retailers gather all kinds of information about shoppers and physical stores also want to understand how people behave in a shop," he said. But, he admits: "A lot of these technologies are kind of invasive."
Hoxton has come up with a novel way of measuring footfall - literally by filming people's shoes. Sherlock Holmes-like, its system can deduce a remarkable amount of information such as age, gender and social class of shoppers from their footwear. "We have cameras at about 50cm off the ground and it points down so it is less invasive than facial recognition," he explains. It is surprisingly accurate. It spots the correct gender 80% of the time, better than some facial recognition technologies, according to Mr Mann.
Looks like this tech will arrive just after Amazon has put them all out of business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday March 26 2017, @12:58PM (5 children)
all the things businesses want from us
We are in a spying bubble.
The worlds biggest advertising and information gathering company, google, is constantly sunsetting "free" data gathering applications because they can't make a profit off the most intimate imaginable data.
The desire for data is infinite because they're in the business of selling it for a profit but margins are slim to zero because no one wants to pay for any of the, frankly useless, spy data.
I admit right now I can't figure out for sure if we're in a notification/spam bubble WRT stuff that serves no purpose other than interrupting us or a spy bubble where everyone is certain if they just spy on us harder than everyone else then they'll find a way to make money although no one has so far.
Personally I think the "lets track little old lady shoppers" is just a SWPL politically correct cover for trying to catch criminals who are mostly in demographics we're not allowed to complain about. The faces they're tracking are not little old grannies for sales purposes but in the USA they are interested in tracking young black men for anti-shoplifting purposes.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 26 2017, @04:59PM (4 children)
I found it interesting that looking at shoes gave 80% correct gender determination, which they claim is better than facial recognition.
I can see where the jeans an tennis shoes croud might present a problem if all you could see was feet.
Bu I had no idea that FC had so much problem with gender determination.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @05:44PM (3 children)
No shoes, No surveillance.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:39PM (2 children)
No shoes, No surveillance.
More likely to make sure they use the correct bathroom, whichever that is defined as currently.
Odd they don't do a crotch or chest pix shot to determine gender. Probably an obesity issue, all spherical objects looking similar.
It is mystifying why they desperately need to know the gender. Given the desire to push labor rates ever lower I don't have useful interactions with staff so they must be doing some kind of weird statistical analysis work, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:59PM (1 child)
Only women born women get pregnant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:24AM
> Only women born women get pregnant.
So far!
Also, that's not what GP meant by labour rates.