Controversy Remains Over Shoplifting Prevention Technology
By Anna Wells From ThomasNet According to NBC News, a Japanese startup called Vaak is using artificial intelligence software to help retailers ferret out shoplifters before they leave the store … and perhaps even before they grab the goods. The “Vaakeye” technology is designed to work with a standard surveillance system to help identify behaviors that may constitute “suspicious activity.” Vaak CEO Ryo Tanaka told NBC that this could include facial expressions, gestures, and movements — even clothing choices. If someone sets off an internal alert, the idea is for the store to dispatch personnel for a quick check-in. And while Vaak says its tech reduced shoplifting incidents by 77% in tests, the idea of using technology to solve the problem is not without controversy. Sven Dietrich, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NBC that these kinds of deep learning algorithms are only as good as the data used to train them and “might be extracting a certain bias.”