An acquaintance sent this link recently about a Walmart customer being tracked after paying with cash, no phone with him. My guess is that this customer has previously paid with a credit card and that Walmart has linked his card/identity via face recognition done on the video at self-checkout. If that’s it then anyone with a history of using a credit card at a self-checkout is likely having any cash purchases still being connected to their identity.
And there’s also the cameras placed throughout the stores. My guess is that at least some of those also do face recognition.
I mean… this is just a video being published by an indie “news reporter” (their words) on X. (The X account also isn’t giving me the best impression of trustworthy.) Is there anything to back up what is being claimed by the guy? We don’t even get a social media handle for the original source. Are there any other people to corroberate that this is happening to them too? Not saying it’s impossible that Walmart is doing this. Hell I wouldn’t be surprised. But I just want better standards for what’s being claimed.
Agreed not the best source and worth keeping in mind. I shared it simply because the explanation I came up with seems plausible and it may be something folks might want to think about. If it’s true that Walmart (or other retailers) run facial recognition and correlate to purchases and also true that a person has used a credit card in the past then any current/future purchases with cash are not necessarily anonymous.
I’m completely perplexed that wearing a face mask is taboo in many Western societies. Go to Asia and you’ll find mask wearing is acceptable, and you may even blend in better with a face mask if you don’t look Asian.
That said I wouldn’t worry much about being socially acceptable (whatever that means) when Walmart engages in anti-social behavior like face recognition without people’s consent. When it comes to protecting your own privacy, freedom, safety etc, which everyone is entitled to do, being socially acceptable is absolutely secondary.
The remaining issue is not drawing unnecessary attention. This becomes a security issue that deserves consideration. Not much good to thwart face recognition at Walmart when a mall cop will stop and harass you.
I think mask wearing is normalized now since covid. People are sometimes mindful and do wear masks if need be. But yeah, wish more do it because I’m sure this is the season where more people get sick than normal.
Where I live, mask wearing rapidly lost favor at the end of COVID (not that it has actually ended), about 3 to 4 years ago, now it’s far from normalized in spite of the fact it used to be normalized. I’d guess roughly 1% of the population wears a face mask now, mostly Asians but some elderly people too. Several times I’ve had snarky comments made to me or about me just for wearing a face mask, and on one occasion I was verbally abused and threatened such that I needed to leave the area quickly.
All of this makes me wonder if someone should make an opsec article or something for avoiding cameras and other surveillance techniques found in the public.
This isn’t specifically about Walmart, though it’s similar. He has a few videos on avoidance, with respect to facial recognition as well, which is more relevant but it’s 3 separate videos and they’re easy to find opposed to linking multiple videos.
Wearing a mask nowadays (at least in my country) is like being paranoid, unfortunately. You may get some unwanted attention, especially if you have any sort of social anxiety.
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