Major US retailers are considering face recognition technology to deter thieves, staff from biometric firms have told tech media.Starting this year, a number of stores across America will display signage that informs customers that management is using facial-recognition software, proudly stating they are a “certified safe zone,” according to a report in OZY.Speaking to OZY, Peter Trepp, CEO of FaceFirst, said: “Retailers want to do the right thing, to be transparent … [But] shoplifters have become more sophisticated.”The magazine notes that retailers using Trepp's product install plug-and-play cameras and populate them with biometrics of known shoplifters from their databases and police logs.Every visitor's face is automatically tracked and compared at 30 frames per second; when a match is found, an alert is sent to employees' smartphones. Trepp views this as a necessity. “It's amazing how frequently the shoplifters return to the stores, and they're not deterred by the old tech,” he says. “We've reduced [shoplifting] by 91 percent in our stores.”
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