Retailers Secretively Using Face Recognition to Spot “Persons of Interest” — Including For the Government

Jay Stanley · ACLU

the incorporation of “BOLO” (“Be On the Look Out for”) alerts by companies on behalf of law enforcement has the potential to become — and may already be becoming — a powerful nationwide government surveillance dr­agnet.

Cute move Rite Aid:

In 2023 the FTC investigation found that “Rite Aid specifically instructed employees not to reveal Rite Aid’s use of facial recognition technology to consumers or the media.”

We know the technology makes false positives all the time, and that there’s typically no human in the loop.

If such sharing networks emerge — much as blacklists of “troublemakers” (i.e., labor organizers) were shared among companies in the 20th century — someone who is falsely accused might find themselves unjustly banned from a significant number of retail stores.

This article collects a lot of scattered details concerning the issue, so would be a decent jumping off point for your exploration.