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Kroger introducing AI at self checkout to lower both accidental and organized crime theft.
(www.thestreet.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Technology
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The grocery store I shop at has handheld scanner guns for customer use. I check out a gun by scanning my loyalty card, then make my way around the store, scanning each item as I put it in my cart. When I'm done, the handheld scanner displays a barcode that I scan at the self-checkout scanner. My entire order shows up on the screen there, along with the total cost. I pay, take my receipt, and head out to the parking lot.
I like scanner-gun shopping a lot. I like it because it's efficient, but also because it puts me in control. I can see the real price of everything I take off the shelf, in real-time. If something doesn't ring up at the price it's marked, I know instantly. The device keeps a running total as I shop.
Most days, my entire grocery experience involves no direct interaction with any store employee whatsoever, except maybe to exchange pleasantries with a stockperson. I do 100% of the work of checking myself out. I imagine the money the store saves on me in labor might make up for a lot of the money it loses in shrink.
But the store gets something else from my use of its scan-as-you-shop service. It gets to collect a huge amount of data on the way I shop. Not only does it record everything I buy, but it knows when and where I buy it. It knows the patterns of how I move through the store. It can compare my patterns to the patterns of all the other shoppers who use store scanner guns. It can analyze these patterns for useful information about everything from store layout to shoplifting mitigation.
One of the ways the store mitigates shrink from scanner gun shoppers who might accidentally "forget" to scan an item they put in their cart is point-of-sale audits. Not usually, but every so often and on a regular basis, my order will be flagged for an audit when I go to check out. When this happens, the cashier running the self-checkout area has to come over and scan a certain number of items in my cart, to make sure they were all included in my bill.
My main point in all of this was to offer a narrative that runs counter to the narrative I picked up from the article. I prefer to have more control over my checkout experience, and I will willingly choose to surrender personal information about my shopping habits and check-out procedures in order to gain that control, every chance I get.
Certainly this could be done with QR codes and a phone app?
If there's an app involved, fuck that I'm out.
Given current technology the choices are to either hold something that a hundred other people held that day before you or to use your own phone with an app.
Applications do have choices when it comes to permissions. Just because it's an app doesn't mean it has to be intrusive.
That said, there's no way a national chain would put out an app without collecting data.
Why QR codes? Your phone can read regular barcodes as well. Giant lets you use your phone to scan, but you need to connect to their public WiFi for some reason.
There is a phone app, that pretty much allows you phone to work like the scanner gun. I've used it before and it works fine, but my phone's camera is not as good as the guns at scanning barcodes.
Also, as much as I realize I am trading privacy for control, I figure there's no need to have the grocery store's app living on my phone, when it is just as easy for me to use the dedicated device they provide in-store.
I might be tempted to use the app, except it refused to let me sign in because of something funky with my loyalty card.
Plus, I kinda like going beep beep beep with the gun.
There is another shop I refuse to use the scanner gun at, because every time you scan, a really loud acknowledgement beep emanates from somewhere in the shop. I can only assume it's because 90% of their clientele don't use the scanners, and they assume anyone who does is a thieving scrote who needs to have eyes on them at all times.