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Cameras in Shoppers Mall

Cameras in Shoppers Mall

MattGoerzen
Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 10

MattGoerzen
Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 10

Cameras in Shoppers Mall
8/21/2018 at 9:28 AM

Hello eBrandon. I am posting a link here to a story on the Brandon Sun site that I have made available to the public.

We received a news tip from eBrandon regarding this story line, and I am curious what you think. Please wade in below.

https://www.brandonsun.com/local/shoppers-mall-using-cameras-to-gather-information-on-patrons-491321281.html
Johnbisonbear
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 4183

Johnbisonbear
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 4183

I'm not bothered
8/21/2018 at 9:59 AM

by this. They should have posted signs beforehand though. Any camera in any place can be good in case something happens. Wasn't there people spraying patrons with bear spray a couple of months ago?
RainaRo
Joined: Sep 2015
Posts: 724

RainaRo
Joined: Sep 2015
Posts: 724

not actually a camera
8/21/2018 at 10:57 AM

I don’t know if it can be considered a camera if it’s not recording in general sense. Either way maybe if they can get a little data to help keep business and give a better verity of shops it might not be a bad thing
Suckie
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 208

Suckie
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 208

Cover it
8/21/2018 at 12:01 PM

Cover it up with silver tape. See how long it takes them to realize its not recording. Just because a corporation says they arent recording for any other use than analytical doesn't mean they arent...

I happened to be working in the mall yesterday and noticed them as well, look very similar to the ones in Calgary.

I don't care personally as chances are there are more cameras watching us than majority of us realize. It would be nice if these malls would post a notice about it somewhere thou.
Trapper85
Joined: Feb 2016
Posts: 145

Trapper85
Joined: Feb 2016
Posts: 145

while I’m not
8/21/2018 at 12:22 PM

Opposed to data collection, I fail to see how this is able to tell someone what store I’m interested in visiting, or have visited unless they look at the various cameras throughout the mall and follow me that way, I can’t honestly say that I agree with this approach.
yellowstraw
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 703

yellowstraw
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 703

How in the world
8/21/2018 at 12:27 PM

is this going to improve the shoppers mall? If all you are taking into affect are the people who currently are wandering the mall, how does this truly take into consideration what the general population would like to actually see in the mall? How many people don't bother with the mall at all due to lack of what they want? If all they are seeing are the people who are there to hit up the food court and a cell phone store, what are they going to do? Let in yet another cell phone place? Why not put out a public survey to see what would actually bring more people to shop in the mall. Personally, my family only goes to the mall when we're bored. We walk around, grab a drink at the food court and then go home. If they are going to be using cameras to see who bothers to go up to the directories, they are going to get a very skewed idea of what it is that people want out of a mall. At the very least they could have a sign up on the directories notifying people that they are on camera. Not impressed, and will make sure to stay far from the directories if we ever go back in that place.
Winter123
Joined: This month
Posts: 848

Winter123
Joined: This month
Posts: 848

meh
8/21/2018 at 12:42 PM

Rarely shop there anyway. I just assume most places have cameras anyway. If you go in public expect to be on video
Simonwalcal
Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 839

Simonwalcal
Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 839

. . .
8/21/2018 at 1:13 PM

I don''t worry much about this, because I suspect that many other big-name stores (mainly chains) already do this. Another method to consider is the use of wifi by outlets in coming years. Surveillance cameras only create generalized metadata, but a smartphone is a direct line to the consumer. Almost as good as a loyalty program.

It''s going to be increasingly hard to avoid in the years come. But in the grand scheme of things, it''s likely less than 1% of what detailed data is already floating around about your consumer profile as recorded by online ad agencies.

Edited by Simonwalcal, 2018-08-21 13:14:55
Adam

Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 15663

Adam
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 15663

Cameras
8/21/2018 at 2:26 PM

I’ll start by saying I consider myself a big booster of malls in Canada in general. With our climate for half the year it’s great to have facilities under one roof with a variety of stores to serve needs. As far as Brandon I bet I’m in the mall 5 days a week. I’m a big fan of what they’ve been able to do in a changing retail environment to bring in a mix of relevant stores and was impressed with how they’ve made deals to add restaurants.

I saw the story from Calgary and noticed the cameras at the mall here. Knowing this was a pretty big story in Calgary thought this was a good example of one that would benefit from a facts-based journalistic exploration locally... not necessarily knowing if the same system that was in use there is also what’s in use here. As facial recognition technology improves and becomes more widespread there is the potential to seriously change how we live and to seriously effect folks’ expectation of privacy if left unchecked. That’s not to imply at all that there’s any kind of abuse in this particular case, but the phrase slippery slope comes to mind. As facial recognition (or interpretation ) becomes more widespread there’s a lot of value in having an exchange on what the public should reasonably expect and we need to be sure there are boundaries in place to make sure reality is consistent with that.

The mall has said they don’t use facial recognition and don’t store images, but if gathering data on age and gender maybe you’d call it facial interpretation? I’d be curious about the type of software that’s being used and how valuable the data it extracts is. This link seems to give the idea that determining gender isn’t necessarily an exact science yet:
https://gizmodo.com/even-when-spotting-gender-current-face-recognition-tec-1822929750

If the mall is making a one shot anonymous data collect off my face and simply maintaining general data on mall usage as a whole I’m personally okay with it. I’d start to have more questions if they were maintaining my face’s data in a database, even if anonymized and not an actual image being stored but a unique identifier that can be used to aggregate all data specific to me. Lots of possibilities like for example building a history of how often my anonymous face visits the mall, what times I visit, etc. If all malls used the same software there could likely also be opportunity to cross reference data to see who shops around to different malls. Not saying this is being done but it’s definitely possible to do. I do think it would be helpful to at the least have a sign posted that makes it clear in non ambiguous terms how the data is being used. The mall already does that with the notice they have about the security cameras they use but this to me sounds like a separate use case.

I know Cadillac Fairview has said they’ve taken their cameras out of use in Calgary while the Privacy Commissioner investigates. Totally respect that there could be legit business cases for this kind of data, but considering how delicate of a topic privacy is and how new of a concept this might be to folks I wonder if Morguard would consider the same while a standard is come up with for this kind of collection?
OutinBrandon

Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 117

OutinBrandon
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 117

Reminder
8/21/2018 at 2:53 PM

Though the public can enter & use most of the facilities, it is also good to remember that Malls are not public property.

They are Private Property and the property owner can do anything they wish on their property so long as they are within the current, existing laws.

If you don’t agree or like it, don’t go there. Case closed.

Plus, businesses track your spending, credit card use, internet use, etcetera already. This is no different, just more “in your face” because it is assessing your person (even if not you specifically) not just your habits or trends. Don’t think information is not being gathered, quantified, assessed, analyzed, and used every time you swipe your Air Miles card. It is.

We have already passed the Information Age. We live in the Social Media Age.
Basically society saying “LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK AT ME!!! ... so we can’t complain when aspects of it do.

Adam

Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 15663

Adam

Joined: Mar 2005

Posts: 15663

Data

8/21/2018 at 4:22 PM

yellowstraw said "is this going to improve the shoppers mall? If all you are taking into affect are the people who currently are wandering the mall, how does this truly take into consideration what the general population would like to actually see in the mall? How many people don't bother with the mall at all due to lack of what they want? If all they are seeing are the people who are there to hit up the food court and a cell phone store, what are they going to do? Let in yet another cell phone place? Why not put out a public survey to see what would actually bring more people to shop in the mall. Personally, my family only goes to the mall when we're bored. We walk around, grab a drink at the food court and then go home. If they are going to be using cameras to see who bothers to go up to the directories, they are going to get a very skewed idea of what it is that people want out of a mall. At the very least they could have a sign up on the directories notifying people that they are on camera. Not impressed, and will make sure to stay far from the directories if we ever go back in that place. "

I can see the business value when trying to bring in new tenants. If they can for example tell a men's clothing store that their data says they have 1871 men per week walking the mall (number completely pulled out of my derriere) thats a powerful thing. You're dealing with companies that are selling online and in many cases able to get a much wider profile on customers in that environment. I imagine someone that sells something through Amazon for example can generate a very useful report on who their customers are.

Its just that it is new territory to cross when you're deriving data off of peoples' faces. IMO its something that people and society in general need to look at in depth and determine what they are and aren't comfortable with because its only going to get more prominent. In the Instagram/Snapchat era maybe its something people are desensitized to enough that they dont care, but IMO it is important to be mindful of changes taking place and make sure we're comfortable with them.

This story talks about evolution of the technology of the last couple years (asterisk being the mall has said they dont use facial recognition, but it is a part of this conversation). The point is made in the article that [i]"Regulation is a year, two years behind the technology.....And that allows bad practice to become embedded."[/i] (whatever one's own definition of "bad" might be)
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/10/609422158/real-time-facial-recognition-is-available-but-will-u-s-police-buy-it

Abbysmum
Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 5038

Abbysmum
Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 5038

Nope
8/21/2018 at 7:37 PM

I'm not okay with it. Another reason to not go to the mall. I realize we're often on CCTV, and we're tracked by simply using the Internet, but this seems like so much more.
TDCAU
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 108

TDCAU
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 108

Facial recognition
8/21/2018 at 8:03 PM

Facial recognition software can cross reference with social media so it can put a name to the face, probably quite instantly. The software can also apparently track motion and recognize objects. I'm getting a Big Brother-kinda vibe with this.
RantsFromAfar
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 283

RantsFromAfar
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 283

***
8/21/2018 at 8:12 PM

So the Shoppers Mall says that they are not doing facial recognition and tracking. But do they know what the vendor of the units is doing with the data collected?
Adam

Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 15663

Adam
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 15663

Cameras
8/22/2018 at 9:05 AM

For anyone interested in this topic, the writeup I found at the link below comes from someone with inside knowledge on digital advertising systems in response to some of the attention the Calgary systems got.

If this happens to be the same system or a similar system to the one in use in Brandon, the excerpt copy paste below answers one of my bigger questions on whether profiles are being evolved over time on individuals:
” Personal identifiers are not stored, meaning if you were to walk past the same screen again you’d be recognised as a new viewer (or ‘impression’) by the system. The anonymised and non-identifiable values can be logged to a database along with the timestamp and put into reports – similar to those distributed by Ofcom.”
https://grandvisual.com/the-not-so-scary-world-of-face-detection-in-digital-ooh/

And as a point of interest, this story has nothing to do with the mall and doesn’t necessarily speak to this use case but gives an idea of the value some stores place on data and the strength/weakness of different techniques used to gather:
http://digitalmortar.com/overview-in-store-tracking-technology/