Rite-Aid is now banned from using facial recognition

Rite Aid is banned from using facial recognition technology for the next five years in a first-of-its-kind settlement with the FTC, which found the bankrupt retailer falsely accused thousands of shoppers of criminal activity and unfairly targeted people of color for nearly a decade.

Background: Between 2012 and 2020, Rite Aid introduced face-scanning technology to hundreds of US stores in an attempt to crack down on shoplifting.

But federal regulators said Rite Aid’s system used a flawed and biased database that incorrectly identified thousands of people as possible shoplifters, and was more likely to return false positives in communities with large Black and Asian populations than white ones.

• The FTC also found that you didn’t need a Mission Impossible-style facemask to circumvent the system. Rite Aid didn't regularly monitor or test its facial recognition tech and didn’t tell employees the system could make mistakes, resulting in hundreds of customers being falsely accused of criminal activity – and, in some cases, wrongfully detained by police.

Rite Aid isn’t the only US organization leaning into facial recognition. Other major retail chains currently using the technology to track in-store customers include Albertsons, Apple, H-E-B, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Macy’s, per surveillance advocacy group Fight for the Future. Law enforcement groups are also trending towards Minority Report, with ~2,400 federal, state, and local US agencies (out of 18,000 total) using facial recognition technology from Clearview AI to help with criminal investigations as of 2020.

🏛️📝 Zoom out: There are no federal laws governing the use of facial recognition, leaving states, cities, and counties to regulate it on their own. Since 2019, nearly two dozen state or local governments have restricted use of the technology – though some areas later walked back those laws due to procedural reasons or a spike in violent crime.