Macy’s, Lowes, and Apple are only a few of the retail stores mentioned in an article by Rebecca Heilweil in Recode that explains the growing use of facial recognition technology. There are at least two important points to be taken from this piece. First, in contrast to countries where the government is the primary user of facial recognition, in the U.S. private businesses are deploying facial recognition technologies across the nation, largely without any regulation from the government. Second, the line between the use of facial recognition by private companies and government use of the resulting data is thin to non-existent. In fact, a primary reason that companies are using facial recognition in retail settings is to reduce theft by identifying and prosecuting offenders.
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