20 May 2024 | Jarryd Rowley
Self-checkouts are supposedly becoming smarter in an effort to prevent theft and keep people safe, but are these new machines doing their job? Photo: File.
Minority Report is a little-known futuristic action movie released in 2002 by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise.
The film sees Mr Cruise lead a division of law enforcement that arrests people for crimes they are predicted to commit in the future.
Cruise eventually gets pinged for a murder that hadn’t even played out and questions about the moral dilemma of punishing someone for something they haven’t done get passed around for the next two hours of film time.
The reason I bring this film up is the new technology implemented in the self-checkouts of Australia’s two biggest supermarket chains.
In the past couple of months, you may have spotted an overhead camera looking at your trolley or basket, taking note of how many items remain. If the camera deems that you are trying to leave with items still in your trolley or that you have removed items from the scale before scanning, it will freeze the screen and force you to wait until an attendant comes and clarifies or rectifies the mistake.
Now, I’m all for supermarkets preventing stock loss. If you’re scanning avocados as onions, you deserve to be punished. These are hard times!
It’s not like Woolworths and Coles are generating billions of dollars each year and insuring their product so even if it does go missing, they break even. No, they need to make sure every guilty-pleasure Freddo Frog is scanned so that you, and most importantly they, aren’t hurting due to the rising cost of living.
We have been told by spokespeople at Woolworths that the technology is meant to streamline the checkout process and keep everyone safe.
“The purpose of the technologies is to streamline our customers’ experiences, assist our in-store team members with checkouts, keep our in-store team members safe and inform investigations,” a Woolies spokesperson said in November 2023.
Since the implementation of these self-checkouts and the doors that lock you in as you try to leave, I have felt less safe and more hostage to these supermarket giants.
Last week, I was forced to stand there as the screen told me to wait for the warden [checkout attendant] to come over to pardon me for my alleged crimes. Upon replaying the video footage in front of me and the warden, it was deemed that my basket was in fact empty and that the camera had picked up the trolley of the person next to me.
Once liberated from the psychological burden of an accusation that I had stolen, I felt like Andy Dufresne liberated from Shawshank. Arms wide open, free to explore the rest of the world. I had paid for my groceries and was eager to dig into the ham-and-cheese roll sitting on top of my bag, only to be stopped by automatic doors locking me in the store in a last-ditch effort to catch me for an offence I hadn’t committed.
Again, the warden came over to check my rucksack for any contraband I might have tried to leave the store with. The warden laughed at me, apologising for the inconvenience, but deep down I didn’t feel like laughing. I felt like Tom Cruise from Minority Report.
I didn’t like this feeling. In the space of three minutes, two machines had told me I’d tried to steal and that I deserved to be publicly embarrassed for what I had done, only to be excused and laughed at by the attendant shortly after.
Similar events to this occurred three times for me last week. As a result, I have concluded I am clearly on a supermarket most wanted list and that they will not rest until they catch me, much like Mr Cruise in Minority Report.
To conclude, I ask Woolworths and Coles: What is streamlined and safe about holding someone hostage for a crime they haven’t committed?
Original Article published by Jarryd Rowley on Region Riverina.
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Christine's Comments5:39 pm 20 May 24
I’m old enough to remember Minority Report (the movie, the book was written long before I was born) and also to remember that when I was a kid, it was common to stop at the corner shop after school and buy a few lollies with out pocket money. And that Mr Albertini made all the kids stand outside, with only two allowed inside the shop at a time.
I’m old enough to remember when supermarkets didn’t have self checkout stations, but not so old that I can remember when they didn’t have CCTV cameras. It’s smart for shops to make reasonable efforts to stop theft. Even the “guilty-pleasure Freddo Frog” that you seem to think it’s okay to eat without paying for.
If you don’t like the anti-theft measures used in the self-checkout area, don’t use it. If you don’t like the anti-theft measures used in the other parts of the store, don’t shop there.
Also, contrary to popular belief, the value of stock lost due to shoplifting isn’t usually covered by insurance.
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Jo Clayton5:27 pm 20 May 24
What part of it stream lined and how is it safe
Reply
Anne Hughes4:03 pm 20 May 24
Totally agree with you I myself is sick and tired of being checked by cameras and then checked again going out the door at kmart, knowing that this register slip check maybe against the law, I refuse only to be yelled at by the person at the door
If you want to stop the stealing put the checkout back where it was..AT THE FRONT
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DJA3:31 pm 20 May 24
Minority Report is a well-known sci-fi flick based on the book by Phillip K. Dick. Unless you are so young that you think the ‘save’ button on your apps is a made-up image. It also came out the same time as the Microsoft Kinect – which rendered the requirement for the input-gloves featured in the movie as obsolete!
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Tim Brown3:02 pm 20 May 24
I miss scanning everything as brown onions
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Stephen Esdaile2:14 pm 20 May 24
I’ve stopped shopping at Coles because of this. I just don’t need the anxiety the store creates.
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B-Jay Brooks1:54 pm 20 May 24
Maybe if the supermarkets didn’t force unskilled and untrained ‘customers’ to volunteer as checkout staff there wouldn’t be a need to employ the Gestapo?
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Robyne Mitchell1:21 pm 20 May 24
I have never used the self service even when asked, I tell them I do not have the time to learn how to do it and I stand in the serviced lane waiting – eventually someone comes along and then everyone gets in the line behind me. 🤣
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Andrea McInnes1:02 pm 20 May 24
Easy don’t use the self service checkout
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Guy Hosking12:59 pm 20 May 24
I have learned to remove my hat from the basket and putting it on before starting scanning. Took a while for it to sink in but I never felt like I was being persecuted by the system.
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Benjamin Rose12:50 pm 20 May 24
Respectfully, Jarryd is getting too worked up about this. It’s a degree of paranoia that simply isn’t warranted.
The supermarkets are not interested in creating an Orwellian nightmare in their stores, they just want to detect and discourage theft in their stores in a method that is as frictionless as possible.
The supermarkets have a strong incentive to keep things easy and simple – loss prevention Gestapo-esque tactics would drive away the majority of customers almost instantly and that’s bad for business.
ReplyView 1 reply
Maria Greene1:08 pm 20 May 24
Benjamin Rose they just want to make mega profits. Service of any pleasant sort doesn’t enter their tiny collective brains. Customers are just a nuisance to be harassed
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Paul South12:44 pm 20 May 24
Im not sure, as I do not work in a supermarket I do not give them free labour. Happy to leave my trolley at the front and walk out .
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Ken M9:41 am 20 May 24
Nobody had accused you of stealing, and this entire line of argument is ridiculous. The machine detected something it found to be outside the parameters set as a pass. It then requires a person to check why. No accusation is being made. Get a grip.
ReplyView 2 replies
Richard Windsor3:07 pm 20 May 24
I have actually been accused of stealing by the Gestapo-in-Training when she picked up someone’s discarded checkout receipt and thought it was mine. She failed to check my receipt against my goods 🙁 She subsequently was fired . (not too soon 🙁 )
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Gantz3:18 pm 20 May 24
Minority Report was used as a reference at the beginning, and throughout the article to illustrate how said new technologies at self service check outs have made OP feel like they had been accused of committing a crime that has yet to occur. Jeez Ken get some pop-culture
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