Rite Aid Banned From Using Facial Recognition Tech

Due to what the Federal Trade Commission calls Rite Aid's "reckless" use of facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from 2012 to 2020, the drugstore chain is now prohibited from using it for five years. The ban is part of Rite Aid's settlement with the FTC over charges that its use of AI-based facial recognition technology harmed customers, the Hill reports. The FTC says the retailer didn't alert customers that the tech was being used, then captured images of all customers and created a database of anyone believed to be shoplifting or otherwise acting suspiciously. For some customers, their names and birth dates were included in the database, the Verge reports.

Per the FTC, employees received "match alerts" on their phones whenever a flagged customer entered a store (the tech was allegedly used in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Atlantic City), and employees would then follow the customers around, sometimes searching them, accusing them of shoplifting, or asking authorities to remove them. The FTC says people of color were disproportionately impacted, and that Rite Aid "failed to test or assess the technology's accuracy before or after deployment, failed to enforce image quality standards that were necessary for the technology to function accurately, and failed to take reasonable steps to train and oversee the employees charged with operating the technology in Rite Aid stores." (More facial recognition technology stories.)