Big Apple grocers that use facial recognition technology to fight a citywide epidemic of shoplifting are raging at a City Council proposal to ban the software — just as store owners say it’s beginning to work.
The proposed bill – following town’s dispute with Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan, who used the technology to stop his legal enemies from entering events at his sports and entertainment venues – would require private businesses and residential buildings to acquire written consent from customers before their details biometrics are captured.
Such a rule would make it virtually unimaginable for supermarkets to make use of the technology to combat theft – even when Dolan made headlines for using it at Radio City Music Hall, where he banned one lawyer from attending the Rockettes Christmas show together with her daughter’s girl scout Flock.
While Dolan’s controversial actions helped lawmakers this spring, the bill gained momentum as some say the technology should only be allowed to law enforcement, saying it increases the danger of racial profiling.
![James Dolan at a game at MSG.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000007891539.jpg?w=751)
“Research has consistently shown that this technology has a high error rate for darker-skinned people,” City Council member and co-sponsor Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn) said in an announcement to The Post. “We’re heading down a dystopian path if we admit that a facial recognition scan is a prerequisite for getting eggs.”
Hanif, who was raised as a Muslim, said she had “been aware of the state of surveillance for years” because she grew up in New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“The Madison Square Garden incidents brought this bill to the fore and helped us get a hearing on the books,” added Hanifa spokesman Michael Whitesides. “I would not bet all of it on MSG and James Dolan.”
![Member of the New York City Council Shahana Hanif.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000010953484.jpg?w=1024)
The bill, which provides for a $5,000 wonderful for every violation, as well as any associated legal fees, is gaining the support of about 15 lawmakers, up from seven on the May 3 committee meeting. It will not be yet clear whether that is fast track or not.
“I hope this does not go ahead because I believe it hurts small businesses,” said councilor Robert Holden (D-Queens), who attended the hearing as a member of the technology committee.
The safety industry maintains that facial recognition technology has improved a lot that concerns about racial profiling are obsolete.
![Face recognition](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/iStock-1141209974.jpg?w=1024)
“The narrative that technology performs worse for certain demographics is predicated on old information,” said Jake Parker, director of presidency relations on the Security Industry Association. “Within the early days of facial recognition about 10 years ago, there have been less powerful technologies, but today’s software could be very accurate, efficient and uses artificial intelligence.”
Earlier this yr, a bunch of independent grocers formed a political coalition to demand lawmakers and law enforcement to stop shoplifters, whose robberies have multiplied because the pandemic.
In 2022, NYPD officials reported that 327 people accounted for six,660 arrests – or 30% of all shoplifting incidents. Business owners are blaming Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for the surge in shoplifting after he said last yr that stealing goods value lower than $1,000 was considered a misdemeanor, not against the law prosecuted by his office.
![The store is cordoned off and a police car is parked outside.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012177334.jpg?w=1024)
In response, many corporations, including Fairway and Westside Market, have invested in facial recognition technology. In keeping with Jay Peltz, senior vice chairman of presidency relations on the Food Industry Alliance of New York, between 30% and 40% of all independent grocery stores use some version of the software.
Stores construct databases of thieves who’ve stolen from them at the very least once, initially identifying them on surveillance cameras. The photographs are then plugged into facial recognition software, which becomes simpler over time.
“We still have an issue with first-time shoplifters, but once we see them, we tag those people,” said Miguel Garcia, who co-owns Foodtown, Key Food and the Met Supermarket within the Bronx, which have been using the technology since last yr.
![Ice cream freezer locked with a padlock.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000007083977.jpg?w=1024)
“Once an individual has the merchandise, he says, ‘No, I’m not going to present it up,'” said Garcia, who adds that his staff were threatened verbally, with knives and sticks.
“We’re losing a number of employees because they’re literally afraid to work in the shop,” Garcia said. “It’s crazy [the city] i need to take it [technology] from my stores when it limits such confrontations.”
Along with text messages alerting staff to a suspicious person, Garcia stores have a lightweight above the shop entrance that flashes yellow when the software tags someone. Some would-be thieves just turn around and leave the shop before anyone gets near them, Garcia said.
Success stories such as Garcia convincing owner Morton Williams to buy facial recognition software to be installed in his 16 stores in town. Over the past yr, the chain has spent greater than $1 million hiring off-duty NYPD officers to face guard at store exits, co-owner Avi Kaner told city council members during a May 3 hearing.
![Picture wall in a supermarket.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000008627909.jpg?w=1024)
“Hiring NYPD officers who’re paid $50 an hour is unsustainable when there are thefts in our stores on daily basis,” Kaner told The Post. “It’s practically worn out any profits we have now.”
Last month, a bunch of 5 thieves ransacked the Morton Williams store across the road from Columbia University in only two minutes, dispersing through various aisles and stuffing toothpaste, meat and detergent into duffel bags. When an worker tried to stop the thieves from escaping without paying, one in every of them pulled a knife on him.
Critics of facial recognition software say the systems might be 99% accurate on middle-aged white men, but get it mistaken greater than a 3rd time for some women of color.
“Grocers want us to trust them to be right, but I would like them to present us data to back up their claims,” Albert Fox Khan, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told The Post.
![Carlos Collado.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000001810862.jpg?w=1024)
Carlos Collado, co-owner of two Wonderful Fare grocery stores within the Bronx and Harlem, who also manages 4 other stores, has been using the software for five months. He estimates it saves him $150 every week per store – a number that keeps growing as he builds a database of known shoplifters.
Collado said the system he uses rarely points to the mistaken person, and when it does, his staff catches the error before they approach him.
“The very last thing we would like is for a customer to be rejected,” said Collado.