Recently while out with family members I found myself once
again in the great temple of consumption also known as Wal-Mart. As indicated
in previous writings I find a particular fascination with what's happening up
at the check-out area and while standing there and observing, I noticed large
CCTV monitors taking in the transaction area as well as the areas in which people
queue up or stand in line.
Watching the monitor I noticed my face being 'boxed in', in
the way that a digital camera does to recognise a face and an object to be
focused on. What's this I wondered? Are they using some kind of facial
recognition? My mind raced as I thought about Wal-Mart not only tracking
individuals but matching faces with purchases and shopping habits.
I wasn't too surprised to learn that the justification for
this is customer service. It's all
for our benefit or so we're constantly told by the data thieves of the tech and
retail worlds. I wrote before about the stand-off in the check-out areas between
the employees and the public. As the lines of people refusing to use the
self-checkout continue to grow the employees seem under stress, trying to
determine at what moment they'll have to capitulate and open more registers.
Apparently the facial recognition technology plays a role in this.
The AI software is designed to determine if people are
expressing unhappiness or anger and thus it has some means of triggering a
command to open up more registers. Aside from being foolish and an obvious
expression of corporate management's lack of trust with regard to the judgment
of supervisors and management, facial recognition technology has already been
demonstrated to be less than accurate... especially when it comes to discerning
emotion.
A nefarious use of technology, I was hardly surprised to
learn that they are indeed matching biometrics with purchasing data. Thus when
you walk into the store, just by identifying your face, they potentially can
know your name, where you live, where you bank and what you buy.
Wal-Mart has always been touted as the place that doesn't
have one of those shopper discount cards that so many other stores have turned
to. In order to get the lower price you sign up for the card.... see it's for
your benefit so you can get the lower price.... and then they get all your
data.* Wal-Mart has never fallen into that model but then again when the new
technology is considered it becomes clear that they don't need to.
Is this data cross referenced with your social media
accounts? Is it cross referenced with US government data bases? Is the data
given to the government and law enforcement?
We must assume they build these profiles to cross check your
data with previous visits. Who has access to this data?
Why is this legal? What would people say if I stood outside
their home on a public pavement and started photographing people as they moved
in and out of their houses, took down their license plate information, watched
their mail and started collecting their data?
Oh, and since they're using facial recognition software with
the entrance cameras and the parking lots are also monitored it's no great
stretch to imagine they're also collecting data about your vehicle and who you
arrive with etc...
Once again, why is this legal? The preliminary answer is
two-fold. One, the stores and tech sector want it and since they own the
legislatures they get what they want. Two, the government also wants it. This
is outsourced intelligence. Let the corporate sector collect the data and
process it. All you have to do is pass laws that give the state access. It's a symbiotic
relationship.
How does this accord with the 4th Amendment of the
US Constitution? Oh, these are private companies doing this, not the US
government. You can opt to not shop there... which you can be sure I will only
with the greatest reticence ever enter one of their stores again. And let me
tell you in rural America that's becoming quite a sacrifice.
And yet as the line continually gets pretty blurry between
the US government and these large corporate 'too big to fail' entities and as
their roles become more intertwined with the basic warp and woof and logistics
of society, the lines aren't very clear.
A satanic company if ever there was one.... hey, at least
they say 'Merry Christmas' and thus earn the approbation of all the deluded and
largely lobotomised Evangelicals.
Ironically this is the very sort of system that
Dispensational Evangelical theology would have considered the 'Mark of the
Beast' just a few decades ago. In this case the 'barcode' that some believed we
were going to have on our foreheads or hands is in fact a metaphor. It's our
digital footprint or perhaps the devices most carry in their pocket. While I
don't subscribe to that theology I miss something of its antithetical ethos,
something very foreign to the pro-culture attitudes of Evangelicalism.
*Of course another way to look at it is... The 'discount' price
is really the normal price and unless you
give us your data you are going to penalised
and pay a higher price. As I travel around the area for work I have sometimes
stopped in these stores to make a purchase and of course I don't have a shopper
card. When they charge me the higher price I mildly protest and ask why I'm
being penalised because I live outside of the area. Why do I have to pay a
higher price just because I'm passing through? About 95% of the time, they give
in and scan a generic card at the register and give me the 'discount'. It's a
scam and they know it or perhaps the low wage cashiers don't care and don't
want to argue. The couple of times the cashier refused I walked away. I wasn't
going to pay the higher price simply because I refused to capitulate to their
scam. I'd rather do without, then play their game.
For further Reading:
See also:
For a trip down memory lane go to the 52:00 mark. This
grocery store scene was famous back in the day. If I put it on mute and then play
Larry Norman's 'I Wish We'd All Been Ready' (from the first film) then it
really takes me back to a different era. As much as I came to despise that
theology and much that went along with that system I've come to actually prefer
it to the shadow of modern Dominionism which now dominates the Evangelical
world.
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