The privacy of shoppers signed up for Woolworths’ new loyalty card Everyday Rewards has been questioned with the fine print revealing the supermarket can record licence plates, capture video and audio of customers and link them to membership numbers.
Woolworths states video footage and audio recordings are used for security, theft prevention and safety purposes only.
One customer said he was not bothered too much with the recording of licence plates and CCTV footage - “I’m not planning on stealing anything or abusing anyone” - but questioned how the information was kept secure.
The man pointed to an IT oversight last week which saw Everyday Rewards customers cashing in by creating multiple accounts and sharing points to get vouchers.
“Our team is well versed in protecting the information we do hold,” the spokesman said.
My selection of paragraphs may have made Countdown/Woolworths look less competent than the article makes out, but I don’t think it’s too far off.
I think until recently it was probably not easy to link a car registration via number plate recognition to a one card, and security video was probably used more as a deterrent. With better technology (and higher need, with the violence against staff) that would mean declaring this sort of use. I’d assume it’s still pretty manual, checking which person paid for groceries at which till at what time, then tracing it to the onecard and therefore their personal details so you can send the cops after them or ban them from the store.
I swear I read a couple of years ago that one of the supermarkets was trialling facial recognition already. I’m sure that would make it easier to tie it together. Just seems like a tech that already exists somewhere or maybe it’s just my imagination.
There have definitely been supermarkets trialing facial recognition, but that’s about grabbing the face of shoplifters then automatically identifying them if they try to enter the store again.
New World got in a bit of trouble using this on everyone entering the store trying to identify previous shoplifters. I wonder if countdown has a new plan - identify the loyalty card used by the shoplifter and preventing sales/calling police if the card is used?