Cadillac Fairview covertly uses facial recognition to monitor shoppers
Occurred: June 2018-October 2020
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Canadian commercial real estate company Cadillac Fairview was found to have been secretly using facial recognition to capture customer data without their knowledge or consent.
Cadillac Fairview was discovered to have been using facial recognition at two of its shopping malls by a customer, who exposed the practice on Reddit. The findings were taken up by federal and provincial privacy regulators, leading the company, which had said it was using facial recognition to track people's genders and ages whilst not capturing their images, to suspend its use of its system while it was investigated.
The privacy commissioners ruled in October 2020 that Cadillac Fairview had installed facial recognition in a dozen malls and analysed visitor images without consent, and that its software supplier Anonymous Video Analytics had kept 5,061,324 million facial representations on a decommissioned server on the company’s behalf 'for no apparent purpose and with no justification.'
Databank
Operator: Cadillac Fairview
Developer: Anonymous Video Analytics
Country: Canada
Sector: Retail
Purpose: Analyse shopper behaviour
Technology: Facial recognition
Issue: Privacy
Transparency: Governance; Marketing
System
Legal, regulatory
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (2020). Privacy Commissioner launches investigation into Cadillac Fairview over use of facial recognition technology in malls
Investigations, assessments, audits
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (2020). Joint investigation of the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, and the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia
News, commentary, analysis
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/facial-recognition-malls-1.4773334
https://globalnews.ca/news/7429905/cadillac-fairview-facial-recognition-investgation-findings/
https://nowtoronto.com/news/toronto-eaton-centre-cadillac-fairview-facial-recognition-broke-privacy-laws
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-cadillac-fairview-collected-images-of-millions-of-shoppers-faces/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cadillac-fairview-mall-directory-facial-recognition-suspended-1.4774692
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/06/calgary-fairview-facial-recognition-software_a_23497017/
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/vancouver-news/creepin-kiosks-vancouver-richmond-malls-used-customer-images-without-consent-2835336
https://www.vendingtimes.com/news/canada-mall-operator-cited-for-consumer-privacy-violations-removes-facial-recognition-cameras/
https://www.biometricupdate.com/201808/mall-operator-suspends-use-of-facial-recognition-as-canadian-privacy-commissioners-investigate-legality
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: January 2024