Rite Aid Banned From Facial Recognition Tech Use for 5 years After Faulty Theft Targeting in Stores

Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition technology for five years over allegations that its surveillance system was used incorrectly to identify potential shoplifters, especially Black, Latino, Asian or female shoppers. The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission addresses charges that the struggling drugstore chain didn't do enough to prevent harm to its customers and implement "reasonable procedures," the government agency said. Rite Aid said late Tuesday that it disagrees with the allegations, but that it's glad it reached an agreement to resolve the issue. The FTC said in a federal court complaint that technology used by Rite Aid for several years led to thousands of incorrect matches, including an incident where Rite Aid store employees stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl. Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers "it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior," the FTC said. The complaint noted that many images it used for its database were low-quality, coming from security cameras, employee phone cameras and news stories in some cases.