ASDA has revealed the real purpose of the cameras on self-checkouts after a wild false accusation about them went viral on social media.
A woman claims that the supermarket secretly uses facial recognition technology to gather customer data for targeted advertising.
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The video has been viewed more than 360,000 times on Facebook.
In it, the lady complains about new self-checkouts being installed at her local Asda, each fitted with cameras and a screen that show people themselves as they scan through their products.
“What they’re basically happening, and this is my viewpoint, you’ve got a picture of your face, your debit card information and everything you’ve bought,” she says.
‘Now, this is for as far as I’m concerned, targeted advertising…
“But I’ve never given anybody permission to take my data in that way.
“And under GDPR, unless you’ve given permission, they cannot do it.”
However, Asda has told Full Fact this is completely wrong.
The camera and screens are there purely to deter thieves from stealing.
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But in reality, they don’t actually store any video footage that appears on them.
The only kit that does record footage is traditional CCTV scattered around the store.
“We have no technology in our stores that could take an image, store it, and then compare it to other images to spot when a ‘recognised’ face comes into our store,” a shop rep told Full Fact.
“The cameras use AI to focus on faces—you might see a green box around the face—but again this footage isn’t recorded or stored.”
Fortunately the post has now been flagged as false by Full Fact’s experts.
But the clip has already been shared more than 8,000 times.
Almost 10,000 have liked it, while 1,300 have left comments.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
