Shopping centre owner Hammerson is utilising its CCTV cameras for more than just security, as it looks to better manage its space and support business growth for its tenants and itself. Working with Deepnorth – a company that says it provides artificial intelligence (AI) for a physical world – the property group is tracking anonymised footfall and counting people going in and out of particular zones. The aim is to gain deeper insights into flow and traffic numbers around its centres, using AI-enabled technology that grows in sophistication the more it is used. The group said in July that it had started a trial at Westquay shopping centre to monitor customer behaviour, but Kathyrn Malloch, head of customer experience at Hammerson, has provided Essential Retail with more details. Against the backdrop of some high-profile controversial deployments of facial recognition systems in the UK, she points out Hammerson's decision not to use such technology despite its availability.

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