In a letter Friday to Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said the plans — which involve using facial recognition tools in digital displays to target advertising to customers and collect information on them — potentially pave the way for biased pricing discrimination.
“Studies have shown that facial recognition technology is flawed and can lead to discrimination in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods,” Tlaib wrote in the letter, which was posted on social media Tuesday. “The racial biases of facial recognition technology are well documented and should not be extended into our grocery stores.”
Kroger is the largest grocery store chain in the country with nearly 3,000 stores and $3.1 billion in profits in 2023. Kroger and other retailers already use electronic shelving labels instead of paper labels to rapidly adjust prices based on a variety of factors, including time of purchase, where a grocery store is located and other data.
The plan to use facial recognition technology could allow the retailer to build individual profiles on customers, based on data like their gender and shopping habits.
In an August letter sent to McMullen about the same plans, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) said they were concerned about the chain building “personalized profiles of each customer, and then use those profiles ‘to determine how much price hiking each of us can tolerate,’ quickly updating and displaying the customer’s maximum willingness to pay on the digital price tag.”
The use of facial recognition tools in Kroger stores also raises concerns about how Kroger intends to “adequately” safeguard customer data, the Warren and Casey letter said.
“To be clear, Kroger does not and has never engaged in ‘surge pricing,’” the statement said. “Any test of electronic shelf tags is designed to lower prices for more customers where it matters most.”
Isn’t that the same thing? It doesn’t matter if you raise prices on demand or lower them, the outcome is the same - different pricing at different times.
“Well, you see, ‘surge pricing’ means raising prices during the most high-traffic times. Here at Kroger, we pride ourselves in raising prices slightly before and after the peak times, and that’s technically not surge pricing! It’s just dynamic pricing with surge characteristics.”
We need a law in the US banning the use of computer assistance for identifying humans. Hands down. It’s not accurate, and it only emboldens people controlling resources.
This is a privacy intrusion that should be banned nationally.
I think they are absolutely, positively, going to breach their face database and everyone’s purchase history all over the Internet.
I’ve been watching for an event like this with popcorn ready.
I’ve got a good/bad/terrible feeling that they’re playing for keeps in the race to be the biggest consumer privacy headline public relations disaster.
If companies can’t protect the information they collect now, (a large portion of it gathered without consent), how are they going to protect even more information; and where can I opt out?..smh
No it comes from taking your money somewhere else. Why would you continue shopping at a place that makes you feel the need to vandalize their property to feel safe?
What do you propose I do when every supermarket in the area is doing this?
Two options:
- wear something that prevents facial recognition (something like Reflectacles, for example)
- don’t shop at Kroger
I’m doing the latter, but I’m probably going to pick up some anti-facial recognition stuff as well, just to screw with the various other orgs that do this (gonna try going through the airport w/ them as well the next time I travel).
Kroger owns a number of stores, making it even harder to not shop there: https://www.scrapehero.com/store/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Kroger_Company_USA.png
Fortunately we have a different chain in my area: Associated Food Stores.
I’ve thought about Reflectacles too, but I doubt the cameras use infrared in a store that’s already very well lit.
Great idea though, and I hope they work on countermeasures that work with visible light cameras too
My understanding is that’s how most facial recognition is done regardless of lighting, because they can blast it to get a better read without bothering people, and the more accurate facial recognition solutions use eyes (solves the problem of different skin tones, facial hair, etc).
They certainly use visible light cameras, but they don’t necessarily run their facial recognition w/ visible light.
Is it? In my area, here are some alternatives:
- Associated Food Stores
- WinCo
- Walmart
- Target
- Trader Joe’s
- “ethnic” stores - Hispanic, Asian, etc
Some of those are regional, so fill in whatever exists in your area (e.g. Aldi in the NE US). Kroger brands are maybe 20% of the stores in my area. I used to shop at them primarily (they were the closest), but they’re now less convenient than other stores (takes an extra 10 min to get there). Even when I lived right next to a Kroger-brand store, there were still at least two other options within 10 min drive.
And I’m not even in a particularly densely populated area, I’m in the suburbs in Utah, about 30-45 min from downtown.
