Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition technology for five years due to the way in which they used its surveillance system. The technology used by Rite Aid has been in place for many years and resulted in thousands of incorrect matches.
Rite Aid never informed their customers of their new systems in place but was installed in major city locations. This included New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities.
Settlement with the FTC states they were unsuccessful in doing enough to prevent harm to their customers and did not have reasonable procedures in place.
Cameras would track customers once entering the store and track them as they walked throughout. By taking live images they would compare them to a database of known shoplifters.
The low-quality images within their database were the root of mismatches, with the system not being able to compare them correctly.
When there was a match, employees would receive an alert by either email or phone. Employees then would follow them, order them to leave, or call the police. They also accused innocent people of committing crimes.
Rite Aid never tested the accuracy of their systems and stated they stopped using the program over three years ago.
Rite Aid stated they disagree with the allegations, but are glad to have reached an agreement.