Sounds interesting. Could you expand on that?
Note, all this was information presented at this conference.
Keep this in mind while you read the answer:
How often do human take relatively harmless yet very powerful tools, and use them in exclusively harmless ways?
Self checkouts are 1) convenient and 2)
probably cheaper in the long run than hiring people to do this. Sounds good, right?
But think about what you have to do to make it convenient and less likely to require human (staff) intervention. you have to accurately 1) have a way to label all the items 2) be able to pay.
As a bonus, you may need a way to add any discounts or loyalty program awards to your purchase.
Sounds really great, until you realize they are ALL methods of tracking.
1) Barcodes have been around for quite some times to help with inventory and price accuracy. But that also means everything things that has been tracked from the store CAN be traced to you.
2) The presenter said that many of these would STOP accepting cash, and ONLY accept credit cards. It's been years since these things have been available, and 90% of the ones I see accept both. But it only takes 1 software update to change that to credit card (or whatever is the approved payment) ONLY. All items on credit cards are traceable DIRECTLY to you.
Even if you use cash, if some one/thing is observing your buying habits, with all of the other traceable bits of info, computers would not have a hard time tracing things bought back to you will a relatively good percentage of accuracy. Especially if you do it often enough.
3)
Katherine Albrecht did quite a bit of advocacy on the dangers of loyalty cards and what she termed "spy chips." Again another way of quickly and easily identifying an individual with things they buy.
Now we all know most people don't care. So what if I buy ice cream, shaving cream, or whipped cream? In fact, many people would deliberately post it on instagram.
But anything that can be tracked can be controlled, and eventually manipulated. Using all these traceable methods, someone has a profile on you: what you tend to buy, how much you tend to pay, and where you tend to get stuff.
And if they decide you (and you all your friends and family, etc) really SHOULDN'T buy ice cream, shaving cream, or whipped cream, they now have all the means to seamlessly prevent or limit your purchase. Or charge you, specifically, 15x the normal price. Or flag and fine you. Or track you down and do something worse. Or..., you get the picture.
Would that ever happen? It already does on small scales. Loyalty card limit what and how much you can buy specific price, and allows the store to send you similar discounts on "similar items." Several years ago a lady got coupons from Target for diapers, a few weeks BEFORE she realized she was pregnant (her loyalty membership noticed a change in her buying habits). It probably happens in many other ways we haven't seen in the wide spread news. We already know certain prices shown on websites will vary depending on the country in which the consumer uses their browser/internet. These are relatively harmless. For now. Again, the problem is exactly how often do human take relatively harmless yet very powerful tools, and use them exclusively harmless ways?
I was first made aware of self checkouts (esp grocery stores) at this conference (mid 1990s) before I had ever seen one. I'm sure SOMEWHERE they existed, but in the 3-4 states in which I had bought food, they did not. Within 2 weeks after this conference, there sat several at my local grocer.