The Privacy Commissioner finds Bunnings Warehouse interfered with the privacy of its customers by using facial recognition without consent in 63 of its stores over a three-year period.

Apparently, Bunnings have my face on-file. I don’t think I like that.

  • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
    40·
    1 month ago

    “Protection against organised crime” my arse you could give the fucking cops footage of someone breaking into your house and raping your hamster while shouting their full name and address and they still wouldn’t do shit.

    This is about floggable data

    • zero_gravitas@aussie.zoneEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      I don’t think they were asking the cops to do anything, they just were refusing people service.

      But I agree with your conclusion. If they weren’t using the data for commercial reasons, they were using it as a deniable trial to see what they could get away with.

      Fucking Coles is using Palantir and has their checkout face cameras, so I suspect in the wake of this we’ll hear more about this sort of thing with other companies.

      • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        My example was to highlight how utterly ridiculous their ‘reasons’ for capturing the data in the first place were. Not to mention none of it would stand up in court as evidence. Bald faced lie

  • quokka@aussie.zoneEnglish
    20·
    1 month ago

    I’m getting sick of having to explain to people that “i’Ve gOT noTHIng tO HiDE” is naive bullshit when this comes up

    • Owljfien@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      1 month ago

      Doesn’t always work, but I ask if they shit with the door open. If they say no, I argue they have nothing to hide, everyone shits

  • Nath@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
    14·
    1 month ago

    I wonder what percentage of Australians will have stepped into a Bunnings over the past three years? It has to be above 90% of us, right? That’s pretty close to a record of us all.

    • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
      9·
      1 month ago

      It’s all wesfarmers, and i’m pretty fucking sure that shit doesn’t stop at bunnings stores.

      • wildwhitehorses@aussie.zoneEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        It is now rolled out to all Bunnings stores. So now when you steal something they don’t apprehend you, they store the footage and once you steal enough to get the cops involved they dump all that footage on the cops desk. People think they get away with stealing, time says otherwise.

        • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          I’m sorry, but this is about facial recognition, not an AI that can figure out if someone is shoplifting? They don’t pay someone to sift through all that footage and note down when someone is actually stealing, that just doesn’t happen. Let alone that the cameras don’t have full coverage of the store. So your statement is just not accurate.

    • zero_gravitas@aussie.zoneEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      Article says they’ve got 30 days to publish it, and also that they’re planning to appeal, so that might delay it further.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 month ago

    Ah, perfect. Another corporation shits on your rights and this time they don’t even get a “cost-of-doing-business” fine.

    if just one person could be protected from trauma the use of facial recognition would be “justifiable”.

    Funny how gov & corpo’s frame all their crimes as “for your protection”.

    “The electronic data was never used for marketing purposes or to track customer behaviour,” Mr Schneider said.

    I’d be willing to bet all that I own this is either a complete lie, or by omission.

    Commissioner Kind said she didn’t think Bunnings deserved to be financially penalised as they had good intentions when they rolled out the technology and were cooperative with the investigation.

    Ahh. If only every criminal received leniency for “good intentions”.

    Example# 12753974 that we live in corporate plutocracies masquerading as “democracy”, and there is a separate rule of law for the wealthy/corporations.

    But don’t worry, I’m sure the neolibs across LabLib will legalise these violations soon enough — maybe you’ll need to scan your digital GovID™️ to enter any store; for your protection, ofcourse!

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    Only if you’ve been one of the people who abuse their staff, steal or have been banned Your face is scanned upon entry, it is then compared to that rogues gallery, if it doesn’t match, the scan is deleted, if it flags against their rogues gallery, securty pays closer attention to you.

    If its as they say, I have no issies with it . their is no corelation between who I am and the scan they took of me and its not in the Governemnts hands. I’d suggest a privacy commissioner audit would make more sense. We are scanned at aiports AND our data is stored, i have more concern about that

    • Nath@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      I’ve been tempted many times, fantasising about how facial recognition could be used to positively impact society. Imagine having the consequences of being a jerk to wait staff being that you can’t go to any cafe for a few weeks. Imagine if being abusive to the kids in Colesworth/Aldi etc leading to a ban from those stores for a bit. Similar story with Bunnings - abuse leads to being banned from all Bunnings stores.

      It has potential to really improve customer behaviour. If going on an abusive tirade at some kid lead to you being banned from going into stores, it would make you really reconsider whether you wanted to act that way. Then I wake up and think about the numerous ways the technology would be abused: Bad breakup with an ex, and they’ve put you down as being abusive from all the stores in revenge. Quietly profiling people based on their spend habits (This person is not profitable, give them a lower priority). It’s a nightmare - something that doesn’t sound too bad, until you really think about how it might be used.

      It’s beside the point though, as this behaviour is clearly against the Privacy act. Here’s a quick reference of Australia’s Privacy principals. On the surface, they appear to be in violation of:

      • APP 1: Personal information has been gathered in a way that is not open and transparent.
      • APP 2: As Bunnings haven’t disclosed this activity, they have not given people the option of opting out.
      • APP 3: There are only certain scenarios where a business can collect personal information. Long story short, it needs to be a requirement of providing a service. They don’t need a facial scan of all their customers to sell hardware, so they aren’t entitled to collect them in the first place. They may be able to debate this point on the issue of staff safety though - but it’s not a sure thing.
      • APP 5, 12 & 13: Obviously they’re in violation of APP 5, 12 and 13 - since they didn’t disclose collection in the first place.