Forget spineless Commerce Commission overcharging fines – Why are we allowing supermarkets more surveillance powers than the State?
Woolworths, Pak’nSaves face criminal charges over pricing, misleading specials
The Commerce Commission is filing criminal charges against Woolworths and two Pak’nSave supermarkets for inaccurate pricing and misleading specials.
The charges will be made separately against Woolworths, Pak’nSave Silverdale and Pak’nSave Mill Street.
The commission said there are ongoing issues with pricing in the supermarket sector and the operators may have breached the Fair Trading Act.
Forget spineless Commerce Commission overcharging fines – Why are we allowing supermarkets more surveillance powers than the State?
Rotorua woman wrongly kicked out over Foodstuffs facial recognition fail says she’ll keep fighting
A Rotorua woman wrongly kicked out of a supermarket using facial recognition technology says she will keep on fighting its spread.
Foodstuffs says a trial in 25 New Worlds and Pak’nSaves has concluded the technology reduces harmful behaviour shoppers, and its use will carry on.
Te-Ani Solomon said she too would carry on with her case at the Human Rights Review Tribunal, claiming the technology was discriminatory.
“Because I really don’t want this to happen to anybody else and for my own selfishness, I have to, because I’ve never in all my life felt so powerless till I did that night, where I was in front of my son, embarrassed, trying to justify how I wasn’t a thief,” she told RNZ on Friday.
Doesn’t it say something of the power of the Supermarket Duopoly that they are able to film us using face recognition technology?
Why the fuck have we allowed them to have more mass surveillance powers the the fucking Police?
Supermarkets and access to them are a necessity as a part of our food supply chain.
Yes shoplifters and abusive customers are not acceptable, but cutting them from accessing food is more unacceptable!
Why have we allowed Food Corporations so much power, including filming us? They have an obligation as part of our food supply chain that goes beyond thieves, so why are we allowing them to use theft as a means to spy on us in their shops?
It’s not only spying on us as customers, it’s a skinning of the human worker into drones…
Behind the empty shelves in Woolworths supermarkets across Victoria and New South Wales is a fraught battle between workers and employers that could affect the future of workplaces everywhere.
The dispute has been triggered by stalled enterprise bargaining negotiations between Woolworths and the United Workers Union.
A major factor involves Woolworths introducing a “coaching and productivity framework” to speed up work at distribution centres. This involves surveillance technology and monitoring to direct each worker’s movement and output.
Under this framework, so-called engineered standards or “pick rates” are designed to speed up work on the warehouse floor. Warehouse workers typically wear headsets through which they are told what items to pick and from where, via AI-generated algorithms.
…so the Supermarkets are using mass surveillance on us (which will inevitably be sold on to a 3rd party for psychological harvesting) and using it to reduce their own workers into slaves.
Again, why do the Supermarkets have this level of God like power?
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Apart from the fact that we rarely get a say in what the State does, most people don’t give a fig leaf what someone or some body does, in the interests of the State, unless the State’s mainstream media apparatus makes a song and dance about it. and that only happens when the State wishes to advance or stop an initiative they are interested in. The supermarkets have been chosen as thee ideal route for the State to advance their powers of control over us all. Our ability to speak out is weakening while State power is growing. Meanwhile, war is raging, economies are under threat and climate change along with the next health scare means hard decisions will need to be made…but the State is setting up the frame work that affords them the ability to make these hard decisions, at little consequence to itself! Oh the joy of what ignorance allows power to do!
Imagine Ms Solomon’s possible response in the US, with the court case and jury-awarded damages or an out-of-court settlement. Follow the money – money works
The privacy commission needs to step in and forbid this immediately. It should never have been permitted to go on trial. What the hell is wrong with people. This is a step beyond CCTV and that’s bad enough. Just extroplate how this can be misused with say a dictator like Assad in place.
Good voice of the crowd LC. You are about a year late mate. If you have been to a supermarket in the last 13 months you are likely on file.
I said the same at the time. Once the trial is over, the privacy commission should not allow it to progress. They shouldn’t have allowed the trial. Why don’t people card about protecting their privacy anymore? Social media has made idiots of anyone who uses it.
I don’t shop at places with facial recognition why should I give spys my money. And people should wear a mask, our privacy is being eroded.