For Eight Years, Rite Aid Collected Quite A Library Made Up Of Customers' Faces

2020-07-29 6

Research has shown repeatedly that face recognition technology is demonstrably racist.
According to Gizmodo, systems often have high error rates, particularly when trying to identify Black and other people of color--espeically women.
Nevertheless, that didn't stop drugstore chain Rite Aid from using it.
In an eight-year program, its system to scanned the faces of every single customer who walked into two hundred of its stores.
A disproportionate number of those stores were located in non-white, low-income neighborhoods.
The faces of everyone entering a store would be analyzed and added to a unique “profile,” though customers were unaware of its existence.