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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

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 [bbc.com].

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.

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