Rite Aid Corp has been sentenced to five years to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the retailer did not implement “reasonable” procedures and prevent harm to consumers by using the technology in hundreds of stores, the agency said Tuesday. Will be banned from using facial recognition technology for surveillance purposes. ,
The FTC’s facial recognition allegations stem from a discontinued pilot program, the Philadelphia-based company said in a statement.
According to the FTC’s complaint, Rite Aid employees’ actions against individuals who initiated alleged matching with the facial technology included increased surveillance of them; Banning them from entering stores, accusing them of past criminal activities in front of others; subjecting them to search; And call the police to report that they were involved in criminal activity.
The complaint says that in many cases, the alerts were “false positives” and that its failures caused significant harm, particularly to Black, Asian, Latino and female consumers.
The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
Rite Aid said in its statement that while it was pleased to put the matter behind it, “We fundamentally disagree with the facial recognition allegations in the agency’s complaint.
“The allegations relate to a facial recognition technology pilot program that the company deployed in a limited number of stores. Rite Aid had stopped using the technology in this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC investigation into the company’s use of the technology began.
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