Retailers are using mannequins with facial-recognition cameras hidden in their eyes

A growing number of stores are using discrete and sophisticated technology — including mannequins with facial-recognition cameras hidden in their eyes — to track shopper demographics in an effort to boost sales. Retailers say the marketing data technology allows them to cater their business to customers better, but it’s also raising privacy concerns.

Alfonso Perez built a system called Shopperception that Walmart has utilized. It uses motion-sensored cameras to track a shopper’s product choice on a shelf and the time it takes to make a decision. Perez’s business has doubled in the past year. “We have evolved in the way in which we want our products tailored to our liking,” Perez said. “The brands and retailers are using this information to learn about us, to learn about what we like,” he added. But what about privacy? Many developers of the technology contend their products don’t cross the line and say they’re far less intrusive than the everyday surveillance, such eye-in-the-sky cameras on the streets, that we’ve grown accustomed to.

“It might capture soon the keywords between people. Say, you are in front of a mannequin with a blue dress, and you say to your friend, ‘It would be wonderful to have it in red,’ ” he said. “It will capture the words and analyze the words; not record it.”
 “We don’t store any information about anybody,” Perez said. “We process the information real-time.”

So, when will these mannequins start analyzing you? They might already be. Not only does Almax sell the EyeSee to stores oversees, it already has one client in the U.S. “It is already in some stores in the U.S., but I cannot disclose the client.”
Joel Reidenberg, a professor of technology at Princeton University, said retailers have tried to keep the technology use quiet. “If the retailer is unwilling to be transparent with what they’re doing, the way they’re collecting information, how they’re using that information, it says they know their customers will be upset by it,” Reidenberg said.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/12/11/retailers-go-high-tech-to-track-shoppers/
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