this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Guilty until proven innocent: shoppers falsely identified by facial recognition system struggle to clear their names (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 days ago by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

People shamed and ordered to leave shops after being misidentified then ‘given no help’ to investigate verdicts

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[–] PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago

Camera surveillance is simply no longer compatible with use in spaces, structurally inviting the general public, due to advances in technology. You cannot physically limit what's being captured by an image sensor: it captures everything, and filtering (including removable masking) is only able to happen after collection. Which could also mean the data itself, or derivatives thereof, may be stored indefinitely; and could, at any time in the future, be used as evidence against members of society.

The only meaningful strategy to prohibit this, is to physically remove these surveillance systems: so personal data isn't collected to begin with. Don't even get me started, about the GDPR supposedly protecting citizens against this type of surveillance: it pushed for modernization of the systems, legitimized the "collect but protect" approach, created physical backdoors for the government to get ahold personal data being collected, and incentivized member states to piggy bank off of it.

But I'm glad the cracks are beginning to surface, and ordinary folks starting to grow uncomfortable around modern camera surveillance too, because that's the only reasonable response to it.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No no no.

This is fine.

Because you have nothing to worry about if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.

Because mass surveillance apparati are never wrong, and no one ever uses them improperly.

Therefore, everyone who disagrees with me is a paranoid nutjob.

^^^ fucking braindead morons for at least the last 20 years ^^^

[–] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 67 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I suspect the claimed "99.98% accuracy" is counting out of all faces scanned, which is a bullshit way to make the tech look good. Most faces are not marked as shoplifters in the database. A system that literally does nothing would probably still have greater than 99% accuracy.

What we really want to know is what percentage of reported matches are accurate, and I bet it isn't anywhere near 99%.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I had to try to educate sales people what such numbers actually mean.

With fingerprint readers, there are false positives (your finger is accepted, although it should not), and false negatives (your finger gets rejected although it should accept). The chances for both look small, but if you have 700+ people in the system, the chance of a random person to be accepted as one of the 700 is about bigger than 50%. And there was a big chance for any valid user to be logged in as someone else.

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Pretty much this. A 0.02% error margin when there are tens of thousands of visitors per year, means it's almost guaranteed to have errors.

99.9% ^700 = 49.6% chance of no errors occurring.
99.98% ^3466 = 50% chance of no errors occurring.
99.98% ^23000 = 1% chance of no errors occurring.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Pretty much that. The customer wanted to use it for identification and authentification in one go, with lenience for dirty and injured fingers on top.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fingerprints as username??

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Yes, it was intended to be used for identification and authentification in one go. For something between 500 to 700 people, and the customer wanted it to work with dirty or injured fingers, too, so the readers would have to be extraordinarily lenient.

My guess is that the customer watched too many movies.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 24 points 2 days ago

The article notes (along with names of shops—vote with your money, if you're in the UK), that the ID system being used has the usual racial bias (has a hard time with anyone who isn't white) and also a gender bias (has an easier time IDing men). And that the provider was careful not to mention this until after people started complaining.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Isn't falsely accusing a person of theft in public Slander?

[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 78 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I am not going to suggest, encourage, applaud and condone arson as a protest, because that is illegal.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

These shoppers getting booted really steamed me. Individual stores, individual systems: that’s one (uncomfortable) thing. Sharing the data means disenfranchising. And when they go out of business someday the data of the whole country is sold to the highest bidder.

Wish we could fix it legislatively so they don’t say “terrorism everywhere, need camera everywhere”. (One imagines that Flock CEO would love us to constantly wear bodycams…)

btw on the internet gotta wonder if someone’s gonna read that & be like “oh let’s do it with 20 people inside”

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If it does happen the company has no one to blame but themselves, because when you abuse people like this there will be a backlash, it's to be expected

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Backlash only means something when the entity getting backlashed is somehow hurt by that backlash.

When the company's immune to accountability, consequences, & responsibility, then .. backlash changes nothing.

The difference-in-leverage between citizens vs the companies doing this is now sooo huge, that there's no significant chance of accountability or correction ever happening, in many countries.

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[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

When the company's immune to accountability [...] backlash changes nothing.

Not really. Backlash is important because it shows there's an alternative. And not to the company - the company won't change. But its users, customers and consumers just might.

It creates publicity, which triggers people to talk and think about the issue.

Which is a good thing as well as a driver of change.

Boycotts are also effective. The only problem is, huge companies have their fingers in multiple jars (industries, brands, etc.) and their main customers are other companies.

This gives them a great dose of stability. But if people were to suddenly boycott all of say Nestle's brands, stores wouldn't order new Nestle stock.

There's also no need for extreme backlash in some cases. Just look at Walmart or Microsoft.

Microsoft is bleeding users at a record rate. Sure, the year of the Linux desktop is still not here, but Linux market share has been rising dramatically lately. Why?

Because Microsoft keeps shooting itself in the foot.

Walmart is a similar story.

There's something about huge consumer-facing companies that makes them extremely vulnerable to losing focus and falling out with consumers.

If some more Boeings fell out of the sky and not just one or two a few years ago, airlines would be looking to clear thenselves of all Boeing stock. This wouldn't even need backlash.

Backlash is a source of bad PR. And bad PR causes customer loss. That's profit loss. That's a bad credit score. Hell, even the government might take a look and find some issues they'd like to check out!

As you can see, this can all spiral out of proportion.

And backlash is the first step in this story.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 14 points 3 days ago

That's a possible life sentence if you get caught. Assuming there's even a single person in the building.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 46 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Reminds me of the US No Fly List.

No idea how your name gets on there. Impossible to remove. Every attempt to fly is a humiliation

[–] elephantium@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago

The list of people so dangerous they can't be allowed to fly, but too innocent to arrest.

[–] vorpuni@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

But don't worry social credit systems where you're barred from public transport is so dystopian only the Chinese do it.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 days ago

This only way this is true is because we barely have any public transportation in America anymore.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

You can lose your DL in the US very easily

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

so, right after 9/11 i had to fly every 8 weeks for medical treatment. and somehow SLC put me on their Suspicious Travelers List because they're creeps in Utah. They put a mark on my ticket that indicated me for extra searches every time i flew (until i yelled at the TSA and told them I was flying for medical treatment and threatened to sue them for harassment. i wasn't, i didn't want a lawsuit, but it got the searches to stop). they'd toss my bags and pat me down at security and sometimes also at the gate. every fucking time i flew, because i was too deathly ill to stand up for myself.

never got that treatment in SFO.

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 42 points 3 days ago

On the one hand, right to refuse business. On the other hand...

[–] Zeddex@sh.itjust.works 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I guess UK and US governments viewed Minority Report as something to strive for rather than a cautionary tale?

[–] No1@aussie.zone 23 points 3 days ago

Well, they started with Orwell's 1984, but that was 42 years ago and you can do so much more with technology now!

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

High powered lasers will burn out camera sensors. They can do it from a significant distance too.

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

They called him the Mall Han Solo...

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Funny how even the things "AI" is okay at (pattern matching within a certain margin of error) still can't be used properly.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Those using it don't care if they get false positives, so it's working as far as they're concerned.

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 3 points 2 days ago

To them it's more trouble to actually double check or review hits then to just give people a blanket ban if they might could possibly be shoplifters.

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah someone was explaining how false positives specifically within the context of early markers of pancreatic cancer are actually not much of a concern.

[–] WongKaKui@piefed.ca 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Soon on TERF Island:

They're gonna have AI cameras to detect if you "went to the right gender bathroom", and if AI decrees that you've entered the wrong one, they'll flag you as a "sex offender", then activate the terminators posted at the store to "eliminate sex offenders"

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

*angry jo ko rowling zapping noises*

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago

This means that due-process has to be made a constitutional-right, for criminal AND civil cases..

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