The corporation, Foodstuffs North Island, first announced on February 8th that they will begin trialing it in a select 25 New World and Pak’nSave storefront locations. The company explained how the process will operate:
FR works by matching, in real time, the faces of people who enter a store against that store’s record of offenders and accomplices. The FR system analyses facial features and converts them into an alphanumeric computer code. Both the images and the code will be securely stored.
The stores taking part in the trial will be a combination of PAK’nSAVE and New World supermarkets in cities and towns around the North Island. Each store will have clear signage at the entrance. When someone enters the store, their image will be taken by the FR system and instantly compared against the store’s record of previous offenders and accomplices. Only images of offenders and accomplices who actively assist in offending will be retained.
The FR system must detect a 90% facial match. If a store’s FR system matches the face of a person entering the store with that of someone in the store’s record of offenders and accomplices within the FR system, two specially trained team members will then need to agree it’s a match before the information is acted on. Team members have also been trained on how to best approach people who are verified as being repeat offenders.
Foodstuffs North Island Chief Executive, Chris Quin, explained the reason the company is doing this:
Our North Island stores recorded 4,719 incidents in the October-December quarter of 2023 alone. That’s 34% more than the 3,510 recorded in the previous quarter. Shockingly, one of our security team was stabbed recently and our people are being punched, kicked, bitten and spat at. We’re seeing over 14 serious incidents a week, including an average of two assaults.
All too often it’s the same people, coming back to our stores despite having already been trespassed, committing more crime, and often putting our team members and customers at risk of abuse and violence.
We have a moral and legal duty to make our stores as safe as possible for our teams and customers, and we think facial recognition has the potential to help by identifying repeat offenders when they try to come back into our stores.
He said
Upon the release, Retail NZ said they agreed with this move. “Retail NZ members are facing increasing rates of crime, putting both their employees and the public at risk, as well as threatening the financial sustainability of retail businesses,” Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young says. “The outcomes of this innovative trial will be of enormous interest to retailers across the motu.”
However, this move is not without its detractors. Deputy Police Commissioner Tania Kura says facial recognition creates a ‘dilemma’ for them and says the country should have an open discussion about it.
I can see the benefits and the efficiency that can come and the reassurance it can provide some parts but how do we balance that with individual rights and freedoms to be able to do things so it’s an interesting dilemma for us and I think New Zealand probably needs to have that open discussion as well because not everybody sees it the same.
She said last week, adding that the police is also looking at the issues raised around the use of body cameras.
New Zealand has been upping the ante when it comes to security and censorship in their country. In 2022 the country implemented “smile security,” which is basically a whitewashed name that is actually a tattletale system a city is using to monitor behavioral practices, which then trigger police to pay residents a visit if they are doing something the government deems unlawful or mischievous.
That same year New Zealand implemented a broader system that allows and encourages neighbors to snitch on each other, if they see “terrorist” behavior, which includes criticizing the government, disparaging the Covid vaccines, and so forth.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
An evil man seeketh only rebellion: therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him.
Proverbs 17:11
The general rule of thumb is once crime and wickedness increases, so to then does the security and government (Proverbs 28:2; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-16); and in this case, the crime rates around the world are getting so ridiculous that stores and governments are resorting to facial recognition. I certainly don’t like it, but what I have described are the general underpinnings to that rule.
At this point, everywhere you go people are being thoroughly tracked and surveilled.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Now they just need to add your
Social credit score and all your healthcares genetic information give everyone a neural brain link and
They won’t need to pay in cash anymore.