Morning Brew short report brings it home: as much as Big Health gets into our private information, it's kind of nice to see a regulator occasionally put the brakes on.

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2023/12/21/ftc-bans-rite-aid-ai-facial-recognition

FTC bans Rite Aid from using AI facial recognition

Rite Aid agreed yesterday not to use this technology for five years after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of causing “emotional and reputational harm” to customers.

By Molly Liebergall |  December 21, 2023  · less than 3 min read

The third-largest drugstore chain in America got in some hot water this week with federal regulators who claim Rite Aid never told customers that it was using facial recognition software on them while they bought batteries and Alka-Seltzer—or that the AI system was falsely flagging people as wrongdoers.

Rite Aid agreed yesterday not to use this technology for five years after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of causing “emotional and reputational harm” to customers at some stores between 2012 and 2020. According to the FTC, Rite Aid’s facial recognition system…

• Incorrectly identified innocent customers as shoplifters thousands of times and, in one instance, prompted a search of an 11-year-old girl.
• Generated 900+ match alerts to one person’s picture in its database in 130 stores during a five-day period.
• Was mostly used in areas with large Black, Latino, and Asian communities, where it was also more likely to return false-positive matches.

Despite accepting the ban, Rite Aid said it disagrees with the FTC’s accusations and already stopped using the tech more than three years ago.

You’re being scanned…facial recognition is gaining ground in retail and at some events venues: Earlier this year, Madison Square Garden came under fire for using the tech to turn away lawyers involved in lawsuits against the company.—ML