A photo shared on Reddit showed one of the vending machines with an error code suggesting it used facial-recognition tech.
  • The University of Waterloo is expected to remove smart vending machines from its campus.
  • A student discovered an error code that suggested the machines used facial-recognition technology.
  • Vending Services said the technology didn’t take or store customers’ photos.
  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    MathNews reported that Invenda Group’s FAQ list said that “only the final data, namely presence of a person, estimated age and estimated gender, is collected without any association with an individual.”

    Makes sense why the machine owner would seek this information either for their own use or to sell to others in related fields. Maybe they can use it combined with records of product sales (vs. a very literal form of window-shopping) to identify areas more likely than others to bring consistent returns on the investment of placing, stocking and servicing the machines based on the age/gender statistics of nearby population centers.

    Doesn’t mean I’d want to be part of their dataset or would be comfortable allowing their installation in a facility where that decision was up to me though.