High-End Stores Use Facial Recognition Tools To Spot VIPs

Tech Savvy

by Brenda Salinas
   
Hey, isn't that ...?
New facial recognition software is designed to help store employees recognize celebrities like Mindy Kaling — and other bold-faced names.

When a young Indian-American woman walked into the funky L.A. jewelry boutique , store manager Lauren Twisselman thought she was just like any other customer. She didn't realize the woman was actress and writer .
"I hadn't watched The Office," Twisselman says. Kaling both wrote and appeared in the NBC hit.
That is precisely the kind of situation the VIP identification technology designed by is supposed to prevent.
The UK-based company already supplies similar software to security services to help identify terrorists and criminals. It works by analyzing footage of people's faces as they walk through a door, taking measurements to create a numerical code known as a "face template," and checking it against a database.
In the retail setting, the database of customers' faces is comprised of celebrities and valued customers, according to London's . If a face is a match, the program sends an alert to staff via computer, iPad or smartphone, providing details like dress size, favorite buys or shopping history.
The software works even when people are wearing sunglasses, hats and scarves. Recent tests have found that facial hair, aging, or changes in weight or hair color do not affect the accuracy of the system.
The technology is being tested in a dozen undisclosed top stores and hotels in the U.S, the U.K, and the Far East. NEC hasn't responded to our requests for an interview, so it hasn't addressed why the stores that are testing the software are staying quiet about it.
Privacy Questions
A consultant for retail agency TPN Inc., says the technology isn't new, it is just a more sophisticated version of , which allows users to find photos that are similar to other images. But he says facial recognition verges on dangerous territory — Google had to from Google Glass over privacy concerns.

When Nordstrom disclosed that customers were being tracked through Wi-Fi signals on their smartphones, and had to stop. Brick-and-mortar stores are juggling with wanting to increase their revenue through analytic-based marketing.
Chris de Silva, NEC IT Solutions vice president, told the Sunday Times that the company had addressed privacy concerns and found that most high-profile customers are "quite happy to have their information available because they want a quicker service, a better-tailored service or a more personally tailored service."
Too Gimmicky?
But Almagro says the service is gimmicky — and not very cost effective.
"There are so many easier ways to use things like a mobile phone, which everyone already has, in a retail location and do the same thing and actually get more information," he says.
Stores like Family Dollar, Benetton and Warby Parker are using data from customers' smartphones to analyze store layouts and offer customized coupons. Retailers argue that they are doing no more tracking than what's .
"The level of convenience may outweigh the privacy concerns," Almagro says. "But I think there is going to have to be some legislation that has to catch up to it." He says that ideally, tracking technology would have to be something customers opt in to.
He says he's less concerned about stores keeping his information than who gets that information after the retailers do.
Back at the jewelry boutique, store manager Twisselman says she could never see it happening at her store, since there is nothing like old-fashioned customer service — for everyone.
"I like to think that we treat all our customers like VIPs," Twisselman says.