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UK To Deploy Facial Recognition For Shoplifting Crackdown (theguardian.com) 113

Posted by BeauHD from the AI-all-the-things dept.
Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian, with the caption: "The UK is hyperventilating about stories of shoplifting; though standing outside a shop and watching as a guy calmly gets off his bike, parks it, walks in and walks out with a pack of beer and cycles off -- and then seeing staff members rushing out -- was striking. So now it's throwing technical solutions at the problem..." From the report: The government is investing more than 55 million pounds in expanding facial recognition systems -- including vans that will scan crowded high streets -- as part of a renewed crackdown on shoplifting. The scheme was announced alongside plans for tougher punishments for serial or abusive shoplifters in England and Wales, including being forced to wear a tag to ensure they do not revisit the scene of their crime, under a new standalone criminal offense of assaulting a retail worker.

The new law, under which perpetrators could be sent to prison for up to six months and receive unlimited fines, will be introduced via an amendment to the criminal justice bill that is working its way through parliament. The change could happen as early as the summer. The government said it would invest 55.5 million pounds over the next four years. The plan includes 4 million pounds for mobile units that can be deployed on high streets using live facial recognition in crowded areas to identify people wanted by the police -- including repeat shoplifters. "This Orwellian tech has no place in Britain," said Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties at campaign group Big Brother Watch. "Criminals should be brought to justice, but papering over the cracks of broken policing with Orwellian tech is not the solution. It is completely absurd to inflict mass surveillance on the general public under the premise of fighting theft while police are failing to even turn up to 40% of violent shoplifting incidents or to properly investigate many more serious crimes."
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UK To Deploy Facial Recognition For Shoplifting Crackdown More

UK To Deploy Facial Recognition For Shoplifting Crackdown

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  • I imagine it's only a matter of time before we find out they used an insecure AI system to secure convictions that left Ray exposed, was exploited, and people have been convicted by some dumb arse weird shit.
  • to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

    I don't know about the UK exactly but they are basically Little America so I'm guessing they're crime statistics are roughly in line with ours. I mean not for violent crime we're like three and a half or two seven times bigger for that but I mean for like petty theft like this.

    People have already studied the incidents of shoplifting and found that except for a couple of places in New York they are decreasing and have been for ab

    • to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

      So why don't you feel that way about the first and second amendments?

      • I certainly do not oppose the first amendment and I'm a staunch supporter of section 230 of the CDA which folks like you oppose because it protects all equally.

        As for gun rights I'm okay with it except that domestic abusers lose their rights to have guns. The correlation between domestic abusers and murder is too strong. This does mean we are going to have a hell of a lot less police but personally I don't see a problem with that. I don't live every moment of my life and abject terror fearful of my own s

        • I certainly do not oppose the first amendment and I'm a staunch supporter of section 230 of the CDA which folks like you oppose because it protects all equally.

          And yet...

          https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

          Doesn't sound like it.

          As for gun rights I'm okay with it except that domestic abusers lose their rights to have guns. The correlation between domestic abusers and murder is too strong. This does mean we are going to have a hell of a lot less police but personally I don't see a problem with that. I don't live every moment of my life and abject terror fearful of my own shadow so I don't feel the need to constantly have cops around.

          In that case, would you support rolling back all of the "assault weapon ban" legislation?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          "except that"

          "shall not be abridged"

          Care to comment?

          I already know that there are classes of people who for whom 2A doesn't apply, so we know that rights are not universal even within the USA, but I'm keen to see the breakdown between "shall not be abridged", and "except that".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            I don't believe rsilvergun inst simply trolling for a second. Everything about his posting history tells me he absolutely no real convictions about any limitations on government power.

            That said in his defense I don't what he means by domestic abusers - if he means people who have actually been charged with and convicted of a some felony involving domestic violence. Then I don't see it as objectionable - after all just about all your other rights can be suspended upon conviction.

            However again given who it i

      • Oh, and the 5th amendment. Specifically you've repeatedly expressed your opposition to the just compensation part.

      • So why don't you feel that way about the first and second amendments?

        Rsilvergun essentially just said shoplifting is NBD and we should just ignore it. Instead of debating on that aspect, you went right for the strawmen.

        • Rsilvergun essentially just said shoplifting is NBD and we should just ignore it.

          Dude's always going on about how other people besides himself should have their shit taken away by the government. He's a commie always going on about class this and class that. What else did you expect him to say? "Thou shall not steal"?

          Instead of debating on that aspect, you went right for the strawmen.

          How is it a strawman to point out a self-contradiction?

          • What else did you expect him to say? "Thou shall not steal"?

            He's missing the bigger picture because shoplifting disproportionality affects smaller stores to a greater extent. A business not named "Walmart" or "Target" has less internal resources to deal with thieves, and too much shrink can potentially send a small store's finances into the red. So unless he likes the idea of the only stores being able to survive being the megacorps that can afford their own Vegas-style security cameras and loss prevention rent-a-cops, rsilvergun might want to give his stance on s

      • So why don't you feel that way about the first and second amendments?

        They don’t need them: they’re the redcoats!

      • One of the core tenants of Liberty is freedom of expression. In a democracy specifically: The ability to criticize politicians without fear of retaliation. The first amendment is the embodiment of that tenant.

        That said, the government is not restricted from imposing consequences for abusing that Liberty. I.e. You can and will be charged if you shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there's no fire and someone is hurt or killed, but the government cannot prohibit you from shouting in the first place.

        As

    • People have already studied the incidents of shoplifting and found that except for a couple of places in New York they are decreasing and have been for about 20 years.

      All I know is that one of the Target stores near me has this absolutely tiny twink of a guy working front door loss prevention. I'd imagine if they really had a major issue with shoplifting, they'd hire someone who looks a bit more intimidating.

      • I doubt that. Any shoplifter well knows that they're not even allowed to do anything other than report it. Target also knows that they know this. Occasionally they hire cops that moonlight, but same rules apply. A Target near my Phoenix home does exactly that and people still shoplift there, though I suspect it could deter smash and grabs, particularly because the cups tend to be more familiar with the local thugs, meaning they're more likely to get recognized and end up with an arrest warrant later if they

        • Occasionally they hire cops that moonlight, but same rules apply.

          When police officers moonlight as private security, they retain their police powers (as they are legally "sworn officers of the law") even though they are off-duty. They can serve in their police uniform. They still have qualified immunity protection for their actions. Charges such as "assaulting an officer" and "resisting arrest" can be pressed instead of just petty shoplifting.

          Hiring off-duty cops as security is not cheap, but the effect can be significant.

          • Still, the company faces liability, so they generally ask them not to pursue.

            • No. Of course, in America, you can sue anyone for anything... but the point of hiring off-duty police is not to "ask them not to pursue".

              • This is common. In some cities even, they'll have an on-duty beat cop in full uniform and black and white marked car patrolling downtown areas. Contrary to what you'd expect, if the cop witnesses a crime, in many cases he's not supposed to pursue the suspect, only report it. There can be various reasons for this.

                In Chicago, they know that police lights and sirens draw more attention than an actual crime in progress, so they simply don't do that at all if it can be avoided. The police presence gives the perc

    • Statistics: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk] Slow decrease 2017-early 2020, sharp drop during covid pandemic, slow recovery (up) to the levels of 2019.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

      Ah, as pompous as ever, I see. FFS, put the flag down. Anonymity can be useful, but was never an "essential liberty" when buying groceries.
      For most of history, most people knew most people they met. At the shops you expect to be recognised constantly. Good incentive not to steal!

      The shoplifting problem comes from a few factors, but anonymity is one part. Simply making the shops work like a Costco, where you show membership to come in. Membership is free, but can be revoked. Now we don't really trust T

    • Re:Those who would give up essential Liberty (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday April 11, 2024 @05:47AM (#64385874)

      People have already studied the incidents of shoplifting and found that except for a couple of places in New York they are decreasing and have been for about 20 years.

      Shoplifting rates are rising sharply in the UK and parts of Europe. Especially with the recent cost of living pressures along with staff cuts / self checkout systems. It's undone 20 years of progress. In fact last year was the first time in 23 years (since records began) that there were over 400000 offenses in the UK.

      On the mainland it's no better. People brazenly and openly talk about how to shoplift. We're not even talking about minor stuff like scanning an expensive fruit and swapping it with a cheap fruit. We're talking about systemic discussions, such as you can take what you want in your bag, just take a beer too since the beer will trigger a 18+ check for you at the checkout, and the machine is incapable of triggering two checks for the same person so after they look over and see you have a beard you will be guaranteed not to have the contents of your bag randomly selected. Walk out with as much fake caviar as you want.

      • If you have that much of a shoplifting problem, then the underlying issue has nothing to do with anonymity, and will not be solved by implementing more rigorous ID checks and record keeping.

    • "so I'm guessing they're crime statistics are roughly in line with ours. ..but I mean for like petty theft like this."

      There's an issue across the UK where thugs and drug users will target shops selling 'high' value groceries e.g. large chocolate bars or strong alcoholic drinks.

      The criminals will threaten to use violence against any member of staff who intervenes in the theft.

      They'll then walk the goods round to a dodgy shop willing to buy them, and so have that as a source of income for buying drugs.

      It's an

    • It's rather unfortunate that Yanks are willing to give up all liberty so their giant state machine gets more and more power all the time.
  • and wrongthink tomorrow.

  • Sure, you're always going to have some people who turn to crime as the easy way and see law-abiding people as suckers, but if the percentages start to climb that is a sign your society is failing, and you can't fix that with increased enforcement.

    The first response is always to hate the criminal and look for ways to capture and punish... Which makes sense. What doesn't make sense is this almost always becomes like a religion, absolute and inflexible. There is no interest in changing society so it generate

  • Facial recognition technology is far from perfect. In the rush to tag offenders they'll inevitably flag innocent people and make it impossible for them to go out in public without harassment. Private companies have already had action taken in the US. Rite Aid is banned by the FTC from using it for five years for just such reasons.

  • Simple solution. (Score:3)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @09:18PM (#64385200) Homepage
    Only those with ten fingers can enter the store. You can guess the punishment for the crime...

  • Perfect accuracy expected? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @09:20PM (#64385202)
    This technology is not 100% accurate when working with a clear passport photo. How are they going to handle inevitable mistakes and false accusations?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      My take is that it is simply about scaring people, i.e. "security theater". The problem is that these people shoplift because the UK economy is going down the drains, i.e. the shoplifters have little choice. In that situation, scare-tactics stop working.

    • It doesn't have to. It's billed as a deterrent.

      • Deterrents only work when most of the population isn't going to be negatively affected by them. Once a majority starts getting flagged and punished, the effectiveness will drop like a rock. "Cost of doing business" as they say.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      This technology is not 100% accurate when working with a clear passport photo. How are they going to handle inevitable mistakes and false accusations?

      Human memory aren't 100% either, guess how things work with human witnesses? And why can't that applies to camera footages?

    • By its very nature, any hit is going to be humanly inspected because, at bare minimum, someone needs to look at the face that hit so they know who to look for. The human element is still there, it just goes one better than memorizing faces pinned up in the customer service area

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Hopefully people will sue. The security staff are usually poorly trained and have no special powers e.g. to detain someone. If you are falsely accused my advice is to simply leave, and if they physically prevent you from doing that then film it on your phone. Calling the police is a gamble, they may be helpful or they may be scumbags, but filming it gives you the evidence you need to sue the shop for violating your rights.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        While this might be helpful in some circumstances, the likely scenario is that chain will simply ban you from all their stores based on a false positive and then you will be trespassing if you enter.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It depends, if it gets attention on social media or the police side with you, or you sue them and win, you are unlikely to be banned. If you are banned, well it's probably better than the alternative.

    • This technology is not 100% accurate when working with a clear passport photo. How are they going to handle inevitable mistakes and false accusations?

      The same way they handle all accusations. You realise that no one is convicted by machine alone anywhere right? There is universally a follow up by a person. (Now we can debate how good that person is, but there's no reason to question the process for handling mistakes and false accusations, that process already exists).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        You assume that the system will work based on judicial principles. The reality will be much uglier, with corporations running probabilistic models optimized for revenue. Meaning, there will be automated response (e.g., think red light cameras, where you have to prove innocence), they will ban you from the store, and then you will be required to spend out of pocket to clear this all up.
  • I suggest we roll this out in California and maybe New York where this kind of crime is rampant for the last few years, and then we can see how much of a mess it makes of things. We've all read the stories of people accused of shoplifting jewelry or whatever it was and the facial recognition system disproportionately misidentifies darker-skinned people. At the rate these crimes seem to be happening, it won't be but a few days before we get a pretty good sample size of mass swarming shoplifting mobs to see h
  • The UK is already a dangerous authoritarian regime where you can be arrested and convicted for stating benign obvious truths. You'll find more freedom of speech in countries like Russia (ffs!). And that's saying a lot.

  • Of course (Score:2)

    by szo ( 7842 )

    All the shoplifting every year causes the same loss the tory politicians embezzle daily

  • Despite privacy trade-offs, I'm of an opinion that police should any means necessary to catch criminals. Most criminals in the UK walk free and it's got to change.

  • Not about shoplifting (Score:5, Informative)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday April 11, 2024 @02:57AM (#64385570)
    UK supermarkets also often have signs up near the entrance that say something along the lines of, "If you need essential items but can't afford them, please speak to someone at customer service." They'll happily give away goods to the poor & needy. Supermarkets there seem to understand their role in communities & that they're largely dependent on people's good will.

    The Tories, on the other hand, do not. There's a cost of living crisis, rampant rent-seeking, price-gouging by energy companies, etc., all under the Tories watch & they're doing nothing to abate the situation. Instead, they're cutting back on essential public services, stirring the pot of discontent & making poor people's lives even harder, all while blaming immigrants for the Tories' blatantly incompetent mismanagement. That's the Tories. That's what they do & what they always have done for as long as anyone can remember. It's a hopeless existence & I'm glad I don't live there anymore.

    Something tells me that this has little or nothing to do with shoplifting.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Required Snark ( 1702878 )
      Exactly This "moral panic" is brought to you by BREXIT. As the UK economy sinks beneath the waves, there needs to be some diversion and some scapegoats to distract the gullible from how badly they've been screwed.

      In the US the equivalent dog and pony show are the evil subhuman drug crazed rapist vampire zombie migrants being used as boogie-men by Republicans who want to scare their way back into control. Unfortunately for them the economy is doing OK, despite inflation, and forcing women back to mid 19th c

      • 19th century? I thought they'd watch the Handmaid's Tale & thought it was an instructional programme.
        • What is it with you people and The Handmaid's Tale? Does dystopian horror give you sexual excitement?
          • No. But treating women like property is considered a utopian quality to some of them....
          • No, because Margaret Atwood said, "I'm not making this stuff up." I think that's enough of a warning, right?
            • It's fiction, based on Iran and Saudi Arabia. Fiction, you know, the stuff that IS a warning, but isn't real in the US? I'm more worried about pedoJoe.
      • You do realize that all the Eurozone economies aren't doing the greatest, right? The economy in the US is doing "OK" because we're borrowing 3.7 tn each year. A >10% deficit is totally unsustainable.

    • Re:Not about shoplifting (Score:5, Interesting)

      by laughing_badger ( 628416 ) on Thursday April 11, 2024 @04:00AM (#64385682) Homepage

      It's an election year, this is pure pandering to voters. 'This is a thing you should be scared of and we are the people to fix it'.

      There is absolutely a level of poverty in the UK that is driving people to shoplift to survive. Supermarket help schemes need to be better signposted - maybe a national scheme of going to customer services and asking to speak to 'Claire'. On the other hand, some shoplifting is happening because of the perception that the worst that can happen is you get a have-a-go security guard who breaks your arm and you get a five-figure payout. We need to get to a situation where those who need help can get it and those who are taking the piss get caught and prosecuted.

      • Well, the food banks are already overstretched. Whatever ways "normal" people try to make life easier for each other will always be undermined & overwhelmed by the Tories' (& Tory-lite's) dismantling of the infrastructure of society. They literally don't believe in society (according to Thatcher).
        • My goodness you give that woman free rent in your head the way US lefties give Trump rent in their heads. You do realize she left power 34 years ago, right? 34 years ...longer than the time between the beginning of WWI and WWII.
          • ..and the Tory faithfuls are still humping her cold, lifeless corpse. The day after she died, someone wrote graffiti on the side of a house by a main train line in central London saying, "The witch is dead." to which someone else added, "but the spell still remains."

            Also, during her bid for the leadership of the Tory Party, Liz Truss deliberately modelled her outfits & hair styles on those of Thatcher in order to appeal to the party faithful.

            Unfortunately, Thatcherism is still alive & very muc
            • Oh FFS, Liz Truss played MT in a school play, that's why she did it. She didn't exactly have a long political life as PM did she? This shows that, whilst Thatcher's accomplishments for good or ill were significant, she also belonged to a different time. I'd guess there'd be a bankrupt Britain without numerous policies. How can it be sustainable to be paying multiple times the world price for coal, and subsidizing a significant portion of industry? (I ask myself this in the US all the time, but we're headi

    • Re:Not about shoplifting (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday April 11, 2024 @04:11AM (#64385708) Homepage Journal

      Austerity and rising poverty were a choice. A desperate, disempowered population makes for cheap labour. It also makes the middle classes fearful of crime, and the Tories like to say they are tough on crime, despite being the source of a lot of it.

      • It also makes the middle classes fearful of crime

        I don't think you realize how many people are no longer middle class with these economic changes. In about 10 years, many people who happily thought they were middle class will realize they have not been middle class for about 10 years.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Oh I'm well aware of it. Most people who think they are middle class are working class. At best they just have lots of property wealth and a good (by modern standards) pension.

    • UK supermarkets also often have signs up near the entrance that say something along the lines of, "If you need essential items but can't afford them, please speak to someone at customer service." They'll happily give away goods to the poor & needy. Supermarkets there seem to understand their role in communities & that they're largely dependent on people's good will.

      Shoplifting incidents in the UK are at literal record levels since recording began (over 20 years ago). While shops understand their role in the community, they are not charities, and some people are none the less still thieves.

    • Ah, yes...oh it's always the other party's fault. We have that affliction in the United States of America too. As I've gone through my life and watched disaster after disaster wrought by both parties I've come to one conclusion: it's not the political party, it's the disgusting, narcissistic, self serving creatures that run for office that are the problem. Remember most of the economic horror of the late 70s happened under 6 years Labour was in power.

  • The UK has gone soft (Score:2, Informative)

    by vbdasc ( 146051 )

    During the times of Henry VIII or even Oliver Twist theft faced stiff punishment. These days, they can't even catch the thieves.Or maybe they can, but don't want to. So they may use theft as an excuse to further erode citizen privacy.

  • A lesson in "accuracy" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Thursday April 11, 2024 @06:19AM (#64385918) Journal

    (I'm going to start posting this now every time I see anything about facial recognition software, because people need to understand how dangerous this software is to implement and trust on a large scale.)

    Let's pretend for a moment that facial recognition software is 99.9% accurate. It's not, but for sake of argument, let's go with it.

    Now, pretend you walk into a store, the software flags you as a criminal who shoplifted from the store earlier, and you get arrested. If that store received 5,000 visitors that day, what are the odds you were a false positive, i.e. you were flagged as a criminal but weren't actually the one who committed the crime?

    Answer: 80%.

    Why? The average Joe wrongly assumes a 99.9% accuracy rate means 99.9% of the time it will identify a criminal correctly. But it does not mean this. What it means is that the system will correctly identify -anybody- 99.9% of the time; flagging a face as "not the criminal" counts to this accuracy score as equally as "is the criminal". So, out of 5,000 people, 0.1%, or five people, will be identified by the system as the criminal. This means that, if you are flagged as the criminal, and you are one out of 5,000 visitors, then there's a 4/5 chance, or 80%, that you are not the criminal.

    But here's the kicker: Facial recognition software is being used to convict people. This is the real crime. This technology is an emperor wearing no clothes, but everyone from prosecutors to juries, pretends that it is authoritative. This technology is not 99.9% accurate; at best, it's about 99% accurate, as long as the individual is Caucasian and male. At worst, it's about 65% accurate. [aclu-mn.org] We would endanger the stability of society to take something this inaccurate and use it to convict people of crimes.

  • ... will not allow actually policing and punishing shoplifters effectively.

    So of course we will reach for technical solutions.

  • Waves of people invade shops, take things freely, and if anyone interferes, THEY get arrested.
    Otherwise, nobody gets arrested, and if they are, they're let go immediately without bail and if they fail to show up for their hearing, well, nobody cares.

    Yes, of course, knowing their *faces* is the solution.

    Anyway, we all know that this will be discontinued anyway when the pictures turn out to be disproportionally "racist".

  • ... the writer is open about their biases, lol

    The UK is hyperventilating about stories of shoplifting

    Yes, how dare you be concerned about rampant crime, you weirdo!

    And telling true stories about true things, well ... that's just unconscionable. The cheek!

  • Not too long ago, they were sending children to the gallows for the heinous crime of stealing bread

  • If you want to deter petty crime in "high street" areas, you need community policing. Go back to foot patrols of police officers walking the beat. There needs to be enough presence that the officers know the shopkeepers and regular hang-abouts by name and face. You should be able to shout for help, and know that the officer is not going to attack YOU. Actual police presence -that doesn't inspire fear-of-death in everyone around- deters crime.

    Yes, it is expensive to pay officers to wander around. But i

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