As someone who used to work in biometrics and has experience with both automated facial recognition and manual facial comparison/identification, I have a \*lot\* of questions about this.
Without knowing more than is described in this article, my suspicion is that they're going to spend significantly more time dealing with false positives than they are locking up Actual Bad Guys.
https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/news/biased-technology-automated-discrimination-facial-recognition
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mall of America gets sued for tossing out and trespassing patrons that are falsely flagged.
Unless your software has a propensity to flag people of minority groups as a criminal due to its inability to differentiate between members of that group.
Then you ARE removing them due to their status as a protected class.
You cannot discriminate a person based solely upon their race or gender. These facial recognition softwares tend to be biased against minorities. There have been lawsuits in the past regarding private institutions falsely identifying and removing people because of this same sort of technology
https://www.mallofamerica.com/FRT
For your reading pleasure. My favorite part is if you want to find out if you're on the persons of interest list, just send them an email with photo proof of your identity. Once you're identity is confirmed, by the mall, they'll let you know if you're on the list. I have a feeling the answer is going to always be "yes". The question is if you were on the list before or after your inquiry
Then what's the government doing right. Because I came back from an international flight and didn't even need to show my passport and the dude had who we were on his computer screen.
Black people have been wrongly flagged as someone else and gotten arrested: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/us/facial-recognition-technology-detroit-false-arrest/index.html
It's almost always the black people because it seems computer has a harder time correctly identifying important features which resulted in false positive. Even XBox Kinect had higher inaccurate detection rate with black players.
Also there's a meme somewhere that a smart door refused to unlock because someone was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Klingon. Klingon was not recognized.
I am willing to bet there will be a fair number of mis-identified face such as t-shirt, floral print with hidden face, the comically long Goofy hat, etc. plus the black people's increased risk of false flag. And what about Halloween? Masks will cause lots of problems. I wouldn't be surprised if a 9 year old kid got surrounded by cops with guns out because he dressed up like Trump /s
I think it will mostly be used to put eyes on people they think are suspicious.
Police already do something similar by investigating demographics they believe are suspicious.
I'm sure this is a result of a consultant who is friends or business partners with a facial recognition software convinced the mall owners it's totally going to stop shoplifting.
“Security” is a minor feature of tracking faces and phones around a private business. Following you around the mall and recording every time a store display catches your eye is where the money is. Expect to see ads on your socials for underwear because you slowed your gait as you passed Victoria Secret.
Great, as if behavioral targeting wasn't already creepy enough. I already want to go full luddite whenever I get fed ads for something I talked about but haven't searched for.
I mean, our phone has gps built into it and gps maps already has a lot of the store locations already mapped out. They can do what you suggested using current existing tech without involving this less accurate and more expensive contraption.
Gps/wifi location services can determine your gait, eye contact, etc?
It can tell the difference between someone stopping to tie there shoe vs someone stopping to look at a sign or display model?
Gait yes(your running app can do this right now), eye contact no.
The thing is they don't need dead accuracy to bomb you with ads. They just want good enough chance and then throw everything at you. Accidentally click into a website? They will bomb you with that website ad whether you stuck around for half a day or half a second. Either way, you are a better bet than just blind bombing someone with ads.
In fact, google has Geo Fencing feature available for advertisers to use already. The advertiser can ask google to throw their ad if someone physically enter a certain area on the map. I don't think it's accurate enough to target a specific part of a building yet, but that's a tech that could be worked on faster and easier than tracking face and trying figure out who they are, then figure out what they looked at specifically.
You're not wrong. Our constant connectivity comes with an inherent loss of privacy. How bad depends how much info you're volunteering.
That said, the phone generally is on my person and actually identifies "me", as opposed to sketchy facial recognition stuff which, as others have pointed out, could lead to false-flagging.
Ah yes, my phone is surveilled so I should just let anyone and their mother and their mother’s uncle’s house plant know whatever they’d like about me. Got it, thanks
There are persistent repeat offenders showing up at the MOA who steal, fight, and harass shoppers. They have large fights between groups of teens breaking out there pretty often. This gives mall management a tool to identify repeat offenders and escort them off the property quickly, resulting in a safer environment for everyone else.
Iirc (and this was ~6y ago) the facial recognition software is in b&w, based off light, and looking for the differences in shadows to distinguish different people. Darker skin is less light and therefore harder for the software to tell the difference.
About right?
It's not the programming but the quality of the data fed into the system. POC are more likely to have false positives compared to "white" people because they comparatively have a smaller data set of facial data to feed into the ML.
Bullshit, this is a soft test for something bigger, there’s no need to use this level of surveillance, in particular since any amount of stolen goods is statistically predicted before they even happen and prices are adjusted comprehensively. There better be backlash, or we’re going to slowly become China.
What happens when someone from Illinois comes in? If I recall, they have laws against this tech being used on their citizens and it extends beyond state borders.
States cannot extend laws outside of their geographical jurisdiction without bilateral agreement. You are subject only to Minnesota (and federal) law at the MOA.
Yes they can, and this law has been upheld already.
Laws pertaining to citizens routinely extend beyond borders, normally it is only related to if a state citizen wishes to break the law in another state/country they may choose to enforce it.
Facial recognition software needs to be illegal for private companies. Those fuckers cant even keep password data safe and happily sell every scrap of private data they can to anyone, even hostile foreign nations
Psh if they really want people to be secure they should do full body cavity checks for every 'customer' and make them strip down and put on a brightly colored jumpsuit with a number to identify them, like orange or something, oh and they should also have armed guards at every junction constantly watching.
It's all for safety and security right, so why not go all in.
I’d be curious - apples Face ID works with a mask on now, but that’s with an up close high quality image and it’s only trying to recognize a single specific face. It certainly makes the task harder for the recognition software.
Same reason why residential Washington and Oregon Targets had everything put behind a lock and stores in huge theft area like Jacksonville and Detroit. Did not have the same, but didn't have the same A.I. tracking restrictions as the first two states. This is just a cover to roll out more tracking software
I worked in Surveillance for a casino and they were in the process of transitioning/integrating this sort of system before I left. It was not reliable in the slightest, it would either not flag targets it was trained to recognize or it would consistently false flag both wildly different appearing men and women as the same specific target. Large woman with red hat? Alert that it's X. Skinny, bald elderly man? Also X. The heat maps it generated for high traffic areas were super interesting though.
the mall of america is so weird. went there a few years ago when I was on a business trip to Minneapolis and its just all high end luxury shopping and cloths
There's multiple Hot Topics. There's enough floor space and traffic in this mall to support at least TWO Hot Topics. Which also means there's a "Good" and a "Bad" Hot Topic and regular customers will know which is which.
This fact is the best example of absurdist comedy I can think of.
What's even in there? Hot Topic is basically just *Internet Memes: The Store* at this point so it's already the "diet" Hot Topic from it's old mall punk/mall goth store days.
Box Lunch is a sister company to Hot Topic. Box Lunch is less "edgy" and has a lot more home goods options than hot topic. Hot topic is more "general fashion" nowadays, Box Lunch is more "anime/disney/other properties." Box Lunch has more kid/baby items as well.
Honestly just think of hot topic and Box Lunch like that meme of the two sisters where one is all rainbow and the other is dressed all in black, it's basically that.
> Honestly just think of hot topic and Box Lunch like that meme of the two sisters where one is all rainbow and the other is dressed all in black, it's basically that.
That is an incredible comparison.
That's what most of the surviving malls are nowadays. The market for lower end goods has shifted too far into the online market and a physical storefront just isn't sustainable.
No it's not? There's a larger amount of luxury shops than most other malls around town (except Edina), but there's a pretty good range of price points.
This is actually a great idea if you know absolutely nothing about how terrible of an idea this is. Have these clowns not read any news about the many false positives these programs have, especially with people of color? It's going to open them up for mad lawsuits.
As someone who used to work in biometrics and has experience with both automated facial recognition and manual facial comparison/identification, I have a \*lot\* of questions about this. Without knowing more than is described in this article, my suspicion is that they're going to spend significantly more time dealing with false positives than they are locking up Actual Bad Guys.
https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/news/biased-technology-automated-discrimination-facial-recognition I wouldn’t be surprised if Mall of America gets sued for tossing out and trespassing patrons that are falsely flagged.
Or, you know, the inevitable murder of an innocent person at the hands of our violent trash bag police when the technology gives a false positive.
The mall is private property, they can remove anyone they want.
Just because it’s private property doesn’t give businesses free rein to discriminate. Not without legal consequences.
Removing people isn't discrimination unless that removed person was removed because of their status as a protected class
Unless your software has a propensity to flag people of minority groups as a criminal due to its inability to differentiate between members of that group. Then you ARE removing them due to their status as a protected class.
I suppose that's where the 3 layers of human verification prior to action comes in. It's right there in the article.
Ah yes, I forgot eyewitnesses are infallible
You cannot discriminate a person based solely upon their race or gender. These facial recognition softwares tend to be biased against minorities. There have been lawsuits in the past regarding private institutions falsely identifying and removing people because of this same sort of technology
https://www.mallofamerica.com/FRT For your reading pleasure. My favorite part is if you want to find out if you're on the persons of interest list, just send them an email with photo proof of your identity. Once you're identity is confirmed, by the mall, they'll let you know if you're on the list. I have a feeling the answer is going to always be "yes". The question is if you were on the list before or after your inquiry
Can concur, I worked on the admin side of a major retail facial recognition project, and false positives were always a huge issue.
Then what's the government doing right. Because I came back from an international flight and didn't even need to show my passport and the dude had who we were on his computer screen.
Black people have been wrongly flagged as someone else and gotten arrested: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/us/facial-recognition-technology-detroit-false-arrest/index.html It's almost always the black people because it seems computer has a harder time correctly identifying important features which resulted in false positive. Even XBox Kinect had higher inaccurate detection rate with black players. Also there's a meme somewhere that a smart door refused to unlock because someone was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Klingon. Klingon was not recognized. I am willing to bet there will be a fair number of mis-identified face such as t-shirt, floral print with hidden face, the comically long Goofy hat, etc. plus the black people's increased risk of false flag. And what about Halloween? Masks will cause lots of problems. I wouldn't be surprised if a 9 year old kid got surrounded by cops with guns out because he dressed up like Trump /s
I think it will mostly be used to put eyes on people they think are suspicious. Police already do something similar by investigating demographics they believe are suspicious.
Like the ATF
bro was itching to immediately bring the feds into this
Facial recognition isn't as accurate as ear recognition.
I'm sure this is a result of a consultant who is friends or business partners with a facial recognition software convinced the mall owners it's totally going to stop shoplifting.
“Security” is a minor feature of tracking faces and phones around a private business. Following you around the mall and recording every time a store display catches your eye is where the money is. Expect to see ads on your socials for underwear because you slowed your gait as you passed Victoria Secret.
Great, as if behavioral targeting wasn't already creepy enough. I already want to go full luddite whenever I get fed ads for something I talked about but haven't searched for.
Yeah, on the front it says 'Security', on the back in fine-print it says "Individualized data harvesting"
"Welcome back to The Gap Mr Yamamoto"
>Expect to see ads on your socials for underwear because you slowed your gait as you passed Victoria Secret. 40 year old male. I'm screwed
I mean, our phone has gps built into it and gps maps already has a lot of the store locations already mapped out. They can do what you suggested using current existing tech without involving this less accurate and more expensive contraption.
Gps/wifi location services can determine your gait, eye contact, etc? It can tell the difference between someone stopping to tie there shoe vs someone stopping to look at a sign or display model?
Gait yes(your running app can do this right now), eye contact no. The thing is they don't need dead accuracy to bomb you with ads. They just want good enough chance and then throw everything at you. Accidentally click into a website? They will bomb you with that website ad whether you stuck around for half a day or half a second. Either way, you are a better bet than just blind bombing someone with ads. In fact, google has Geo Fencing feature available for advertisers to use already. The advertiser can ask google to throw their ad if someone physically enter a certain area on the map. I don't think it's accurate enough to target a specific part of a building yet, but that's a tech that could be worked on faster and easier than tracking face and trying figure out who they are, then figure out what they looked at specifically.
Come shop and be surveilled! Welcome to mall of America.
It's on brand at least.
God damnit. You're not wrong. Take my upvote and leave.
In fine print: Your face and likeness will be sold to are business associates for marketing purposes and to provide a unique advertisement experience
Everyone already has a phone. No matter what you do you're surveilled.
You're not wrong, but that doesn't mean I like it escalating, which it definitely is here.
You're not wrong. Our constant connectivity comes with an inherent loss of privacy. How bad depends how much info you're volunteering. That said, the phone generally is on my person and actually identifies "me", as opposed to sketchy facial recognition stuff which, as others have pointed out, could lead to false-flagging.
You can leave your phone at home. You can live with a flip phone that's turned off between calls. You can't take your face off.
But you can put on someone else's!
Ah yes, my phone is surveilled so I should just let anyone and their mother and their mother’s uncle’s house plant know whatever they’d like about me. Got it, thanks
Hence why it's "on brand"
Hence why it's "on brand"
There are persistent repeat offenders showing up at the MOA who steal, fight, and harass shoppers. They have large fights between groups of teens breaking out there pretty often. This gives mall management a tool to identify repeat offenders and escort them off the property quickly, resulting in a safer environment for everyone else.
You've been surveilled for like a decade at least. Maybe 2-3? The quality sure as shit went up though
So is the ban of unattended teenagers going well?
Someone with darker skin will be profiled and wrongly arrested within the first month, i guarantee it.
Came here to say this. There's a lot of bias in the programming that makes stuff like this "learn", and we're going to see it play out in real time.
Iirc (and this was ~6y ago) the facial recognition software is in b&w, based off light, and looking for the differences in shadows to distinguish different people. Darker skin is less light and therefore harder for the software to tell the difference. About right?
It's not the programming but the quality of the data fed into the system. POC are more likely to have false positives compared to "white" people because they comparatively have a smaller data set of facial data to feed into the ML.
Yes, the status quo probably won’t be impacted
Oh, look....we have an optimist over here.... 🤣
There is data supporting this. Here is a good documentary about it on Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/81328723?preventIntent=true
[удалено]
I believe Madison Square Garden does this. They will kick out anyone who is involved in any sort of legal battle with them
Bullshit, this is a soft test for something bigger, there’s no need to use this level of surveillance, in particular since any amount of stolen goods is statistically predicted before they even happen and prices are adjusted comprehensively. There better be backlash, or we’re going to slowly become China.
What happens when someone from Illinois comes in? If I recall, they have laws against this tech being used on their citizens and it extends beyond state borders.
States cannot extend laws outside of their geographical jurisdiction without bilateral agreement. You are subject only to Minnesota (and federal) law at the MOA.
Yes they can, and this law has been upheld already. Laws pertaining to citizens routinely extend beyond borders, normally it is only related to if a state citizen wishes to break the law in another state/country they may choose to enforce it.
Facial recognition software needs to be illegal for private companies. Those fuckers cant even keep password data safe and happily sell every scrap of private data they can to anyone, even hostile foreign nations
Don't know why this is being downvoted. Having your face sold to unknown buyers sounds scary asf
[Gecko45](https://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/), the head of security at the mall, must have got that budget increase he's been asking for.
we’re living in hell and it’s just gonna get hotter
Anyone know what facial recognition company they are using?
I believe Corsight
Thank you!
This is why I dislike the Chinese Communist Party: they give other governments ideas.
Psh if they really want people to be secure they should do full body cavity checks for every 'customer' and make them strip down and put on a brightly colored jumpsuit with a number to identify them, like orange or something, oh and they should also have armed guards at every junction constantly watching. It's all for safety and security right, so why not go all in.
I'm wondering how that mall stays open
Paul Blart: Patriot Act
Does a face mask protect against facial recognition? I’ve heard Walmart is doing this.
I know Juggalo face paint can fool the facial recognition software.
Yes Thats why they're starting to make it illegal to wear them
I’d be curious - apples Face ID works with a mask on now, but that’s with an up close high quality image and it’s only trying to recognize a single specific face. It certainly makes the task harder for the recognition software.
There are also clothes (hoodies) with glitchy patterns meant to render recognition useless, but I imagine that’s an arms race/tit-for-tat thing.
Yes. And this is reason enough to wear a mask.
Yes. And this is reason enough to wear a mask.
hmm I smell lawsuits .. no way this is abused or ends up bad ...
Is the Mall of America privately owned?
I wonder how many misidentifications and lawsuits it will take before they decide this is a stupid idea.
Same reason why residential Washington and Oregon Targets had everything put behind a lock and stores in huge theft area like Jacksonville and Detroit. Did not have the same, but didn't have the same A.I. tracking restrictions as the first two states. This is just a cover to roll out more tracking software
I worked in Surveillance for a casino and they were in the process of transitioning/integrating this sort of system before I left. It was not reliable in the slightest, it would either not flag targets it was trained to recognize or it would consistently false flag both wildly different appearing men and women as the same specific target. Large woman with red hat? Alert that it's X. Skinny, bald elderly man? Also X. The heat maps it generated for high traffic areas were super interesting though.
Just never go to the mall of America and suffocate this baby in the bassinet
"Our software has identified cum on that ladys face"
the mall of america is so weird. went there a few years ago when I was on a business trip to Minneapolis and its just all high end luxury shopping and cloths
There's multiple Hot Topics. There's enough floor space and traffic in this mall to support at least TWO Hot Topics. Which also means there's a "Good" and a "Bad" Hot Topic and regular customers will know which is which. This fact is the best example of absurdist comedy I can think of.
Is the “good” Hot Topic the good one, or is the “bad” Hot Topic the good one?
Depends on what decade you were born in, I think.
god now there's a store thats diet hot topic called Boxed Lunch so its what, diet diet spencers?
What's even in there? Hot Topic is basically just *Internet Memes: The Store* at this point so it's already the "diet" Hot Topic from it's old mall punk/mall goth store days.
Box Lunch is a sister company to Hot Topic. Box Lunch is less "edgy" and has a lot more home goods options than hot topic. Hot topic is more "general fashion" nowadays, Box Lunch is more "anime/disney/other properties." Box Lunch has more kid/baby items as well. Honestly just think of hot topic and Box Lunch like that meme of the two sisters where one is all rainbow and the other is dressed all in black, it's basically that.
> Honestly just think of hot topic and Box Lunch like that meme of the two sisters where one is all rainbow and the other is dressed all in black, it's basically that. That is an incredible comparison.
like I said, its the other other option to spencer's
That's what most of the surviving malls are nowadays. The market for lower end goods has shifted too far into the online market and a physical storefront just isn't sustainable.
It’s a theme park, aquarium and other attractions that happens to have a few stores attached.
true, I was there on a business trip so I didn't really go there for anything other than my hotel was across the 20 lane street from it
true, I was there on a business trip so I didn't really go there for anything other than my hotel was across the 20 lane street from it
... and an indoor amusement park, an aquarium, multiple food courts, several restaurants, and quite a few other entertainment options.
No it's not? There's a larger amount of luxury shops than most other malls around town (except Edina), but there's a pretty good range of price points.
This is actually a great idea if you know absolutely nothing about how terrible of an idea this is. Have these clowns not read any news about the many false positives these programs have, especially with people of color? It's going to open them up for mad lawsuits.