Media coverage: 7News
As individual cities such as Boston and San Francisco in the United States are banning the use of facial recognition technology as part of the #BLM response, 7-Eleven in Australia has launched the technology across all of its 700 Australian stores.
The convenience store chain will use the facial recognition software within its ‘Rate It’ customer service tablet, and “not for any other purpose”.
“The use of facial recognition within the Rate It tablet is to ensure that the feedback is accurate and valid, and given customer feedback is so important to us we don’t want the system being ‘gamed’.
It’s an assurance that doesn’t sit well with Stephen Blanks from the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.
“This kind of information gathering should be against the law. It’s certainly against good privacy practice and principles.”
Blanks said collecting the data of people trying to provide feedback made little sense.
“They are creating an incentive not to use the feedback tablet – which is contrary to what they’re wanting to achieve.”
7NEWS.com.au understands that an element of the software’s facial recognition is to discourage 7-Eleven staff from self-rating during a shift.
“That’s not an adequate justification for gathering the information,” Blanks said.
