Coles has got you covered, what will the shopping monopoly do with your image?
From Bliskitt
Coles introducing new technology that tracks shoppers’ every move
The supermarket is rolling out drastic new measures to tackle a rising issue across Australia – but some argue it’s “completely unacceptable”.
Coles is “aggressively” rolling out new technology that will track shoppers’ every move from the moment they walk into a store.
Overhead cameras, trolley locks, smart gates and, perhaps most bizarrely, fog machines will be introduced in a desperate bid to tackle rising theft.
“If you’re a thief, we’re gonna catch ya,” Coles’ Chief Operating Officer Matt Swindells told A Current Affair on Wednesday.
The changes are set to leave your average supermarket feeling more like a bank vault or maximum-security prison.
The surveillance begins with cameras which start tracking customers when they enter a store, recording where they go and what they pick up.
Once you get to a checkout, hi-tech cameras above the self-checkout machines now track all items being scanned and bagged.
After that, smart gates will lock automatically to prevent anyone with unscanned items leaving the store, sounding an alarm in the process.
Fog machines which set off automatically are also being implemented to deter break-ins, along with trolleys whose wheels lock automatically if anyone tries to do a runner.
The drastic measures are being put in place to combat a 20 per cent rise in store theft, which costs retailers a whopping $9 billion a year.
After a six-month trial, the tech is now being rolled out “aggressively” across Australia over the next three months, Swindells told the program.
The ultimate goal is to make it impossible to steal from a Coles store.
Coles is “aggressively” rolling out new technology that will track shoppers’ every move from the moment they walk into a store.
OVERHEAD CAMERAS, TROLLEY LOCKS, SMART GATES AND, PERHAPS MOST BIZARRELY, FOG MACHINES WILL BE INTRODUCED IN A DESPERATE BID TO TACKLE RISING THEFT.
“If you’re a thief, we’re gonna catch ya,” Coles’ Chief Operating Officer Matt Swindells told A Current Affair on Wednesday.
The changes are set to leave your average supermarket feeling more like a bank vault or maximum-security prison.
The surveillance begins with cameras which start tracking customers when they enter a store, recording where they go and what they pick up.
Once you get to a checkout, hi-tech cameras above the self-checkout machines now track all items being scanned and bagged.
After that, smart gates will lock automatically to prevent anyone with unscanned items leaving the store, sounding an alarm in the process.
Fog machines which set off automatically are also being implemented to deter break-ins, along with trolleys whose wheels lock automatically if anyone tries to do a runner.
The drastic measures are being put in place to combat a 20 per cent rise in store theft, which costs retailers a whopping $9 billion a year.
After a six-month trial, the tech is now being rolled out “aggressively” across Australia over the next three months, Swindells told the program.
The ultimate goal is to make it impossible to steal from a Coles store.
The move comes after the retail giant announced on Tuesday it will also rollout body-worn cameras for staff in another bid to prevent theft and protect its staff after an alarming increase in violent behaviour towards workers.
“It’s important to note that the majority of customers do the right thing in store. Measures like this are for the ones who don’t,” a Coles spokesperson told news.com.au.
“The safety of our team members and customers is our top priority, and we have a range of security measures in place to reduce theft from our stores, including security personnel and surveillance technologies such as CCTV.”
Woolworths introduced a similar bold security measure in a bid to keep its employees safe back in 2021 which was widely praised by shoppers.
However, despite consumers welcoming measures to protect supermarket staff, many have also addressed concerns at the growing number of cameras in stores.
Controversial AI checkout cameras, already fitted at self-serve checkouts in both Coles and Woolworths, have been widely criticised as customers claim the relentless surveillance was “completely unacceptable”.
“I think Coles should perhaps consider other approaches that do not default to surveillance,” said Dr Monique Mann, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University and Vice-Chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation.
“Let’s think about why are we seeing increases in people shoplifting? Why are people being aggressive towards staff? People are struggling. At the same time, Coles and Woolworths are recording massive (in excess of a billion dollars) profits amid a cost of living crisis. Maybe they should think about that and try to alleviate cost of living pressures that rather than just expand surveillance and their profits.”
Coles reported a profit of $1.1bn in the latest financial year but a 20 per cent increase in stock losses mainly due to theft.
“Stock loss is a priority and we are taking immediate actions to address this, including accelerating investment in technology,” the company said in its recent annual statement.”
There are pictures of the technologies in the article.
Is Australia worse than China?
Chinese reacts to critical books on China (Xi, 1989, communism, Sino-US, mao, one-child policy, etc)
Support local family owned business’ as much as you can including the butcher, the baker and …the candle stick maker (usually at markets) for when the (green) power shits itself! Which is becoming more often than not.
I refuse to use a self serve machine. I do not now visit Target for that reason. If enough of us have this attitude these giant anti-competitive conglomerates would eventually pull their heads in. I say anti-competitive as they along with local councils have crushed small business where we used to get “service”.
If as Coles assert they lose “a whopping 9 billion dollars per year” through theft, how much more of an EXCESS profit would they be making without that theft?
Try putting counter staff back into your stores.
@ Pat fom Vic: “Your concern should perhaps be more about what’s going to happen when you try to purchase something that it decides you’re not ALLOWED to buy”
What an optimist you are! LMAO I was thinking he might not even get a look in into the joint.
Just imagine for a moment what they can do with TOTAL 24 hr surveillance using face recognition. No place to hide! Even if you have NOTHING to hide. Your every step and every move monitored for someone else’s power, benefit and control.
Human goldfish in a bowl. Dumb jackasses have no idea how dehumanising it can get.
But I suppose if we have nothing to hide we’ll be right, eh? WTF! Where did so many people lose their brains and self respect to cop this sht?
STJOHNOFGRAFTON said – “What’s going to happen if I innocently forget to scan an item?”
The self-serve checkout registers ALREADY have cameras which scan YOU, your FACE and your TROLLEY CONTENTS.
If the register decides that you’ve failed to put something through, then it will simply REFUSE to allow you to finalise your purchases.
I know, this has already happened to me, when the register decided that I should pay for some stuff sitting in the trolley that I had already purchased in another store.
Your concern should perhaps be more about what’s going to happen when you try to purchase something that it decides you’re not ALLOWED to buy – because your Social Credit Score is too low, or you’ve already exceeded your weekly quota, or you’ve used up all your “Carbon Credits”, or you traveled outside your 15 Minute City limits, or you missed your latest BIOWEAPON INJECTION, or they’ve decided to TURN OFF your Central Bank Digital Currency for ANY REASON AT ALL.
And TBH, THAT is EXACTLY where all this is headed – and ALL of the major retailers are on board with our fake “governments” with ALL of it.
I like self check-out. But one of the hazards is making sure I have scanned every item before payment. I am pretty diligent but am concerned that sooner or later I will forget to scan an item. This latest overhead surveillance system makes me more paranoid. What’s going to happen if I innocently forget to scan an item? Sirens, TRG stakeout, cuffed on the supermarket floor whilst kneed in the back by security, the ensuing public humiliation or an understanding talk and counselling by the supermarket manager because it’s a first offence.
Coles claim,
That their chief operating officer is a man named Mr Matt Swindells? That is rather an unfortunate name for a Coles Officer to have! Are you sure it’s not Swindler ?
Is he possibly a swindler, that is the big question?
I allege that the Coles heir-achy I is constantly jacking up their prices even more cruelly than I. G. A and Woolworths seemingly do. Could this possibly be forcing a very few cash strapped customer to possibly have light fingers ?
I’ll bet that Mr Matt Swinler probably earns some $500,000 Australian dollars a year or more in his office job, whereas the real Coles workers = floor-staff have to get by on crappy wages as always !
Cheers,
Richard Neville, Student of Common Law and Justice.
christine.257 said – “If you have nothing to hide then CCTV cameras can’t affect your lives can they?”
That’s somewhat naive. Everyone has something to hide. The only ones that don’t are dead people.
How anyone can think that mass surveillance will have zero impact on their lives is living with their head buried in the sand.
Interesting we hadn’t hear this before. Ed
Keep the pressure on IGA too, remember allegedly they were the bastards in the Northern Territory who wanted it brought in or did bring it in – mandating jabs to enter their store or you couldn’t buy food there. No f’ing mandates for anything, anywhere, anytime.
Don’t know, we should ask George Orwell? Ed
Do not shop at Woolworths as it is owned by Rothschild’s Bank, the last place anyone should by things from
“Having “nothing to hide” will be small comfort when universal surveillance is used to ENFORCE whatever dictates our prospective Masters decide for us.”
lol Can’t believe you actually had to spell that out. It must be harder for a space cadet to understand than rocket science.
daviddd2 said – “… I’m now obliged to speculate whether they should plant cameras in our butts as well in case they lose a ring or something.”
Should be interesting after Curry Night.
christine.257 said – “If you have nothing to hide then CCTV cameras can’t affect your lives can they?”
It sounds like you and Klaus Schwab would get on like a house on fire. Though I doubt that relationship will be based on mutual respect. There is this thing called a “useful idiot”, after all. Or perhaps in Klaus’ view, vermin to be exterminated.
Perhaps you’re missing a key assumption in your own posture on this subject – that the overseers of all this surveillance are benign and only concerned for the greater good – an assumption that the ARCHITECTS of this dystopian BS have no intention to INTERFERE in our lives.
Having “nothing to hide” will be small comfort when universal surveillance is used to ENFORCE whatever dictates our prospective Masters decide for us. In other words, to answer your question, YES THEY CAN “affect your lives”, and – given the joys of totalitarian living here in Australia over the last few years – it would appear that’s EXACTLY where all of this is heading.
And let’s ALSO consider the INESCAPABLE temporal correlation and disturbing compatibility of these retail surveillance initiatives with the looming “SMART cities” now being planned for every municipality across Australia.
Like the chickens observing the foxes building a new kitchen complete with all the necessary requisites for making gourmet chicken soup, right next to the chicken coop, if the chickens have nothing to hide it can’t affect their lives can it?
christine.257: “If you have nothing to hide then CCTV cameras can’t affect your lives can they?”
“Nothing to hide” is a lame, hackneyed argument from long ago.
Thanks for that, I’m now obliged to speculate whether they should plant cameras in our butts as well in case they lose a ring or something.
When Big Corporations and Big Government get in bed they end up with all the orgasms and we the people end up fkd.
How do we like that, folks? More of the same please? Or have we had enough?
In America all stores are covered by CCTV and by watching past CCTV recordings, detectives are able to watch predators hunting vulnerable women to catch, steal and rape and kill – the programs to watch are “See No Evil” and it is amazing what CCTV cameras pick up and crimes solved, which would have been impossible previously without that CCTV recorded evidence, with DNA, as well now.
Me personally, I am all in favor of CCTV everywhere, it puts a level of security on all of us and it makes others less honest, more honest, or more violent, less violent, when they know that their every move and action is being recorded and WILL be used against them, when they are held to account for the crimes they perpetuated.
If you have nothing to hide then CCTV cameras can’t affect your lives can they?
Unfortunately, many companies are now subject to the will of their dominant shareholders.
For example: Blackrock have implemented a Woke ‘social credit rating’ scheme, modelled upon the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘social credit scoring’ system.
Companies know they will lose customer business, – but must go along with it.
Mark Moss provides his usual sound analysis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s4o3A1Bmvc
Another related development concerns Bill Gates. After Budweiser’s devastating Woke advertisement, and subsequent share crash, Bill Gates has just moved in and bought up loads of cheap Anheuser-Busch shares (the parent company).
During the last pandemic, only alcohol stores were allowed to remain open. Alcohol was one of the few positive investment outcomes of the last pandemic. Worth bearing in mind.
Gates said his vaccine investment was his best investment ever, I wonder what his alcohol investment will return?
This has absolutely nothing to do with shoplifting, since supermarkets factor shoplifting into the price of groceries. Shoplifting and employee safety are just the excuse for these globalist corporations to roll out CCP-style surveillance technology in their stores, ready for the coming carbon-based social credits system. It’s the classic Hegelian dialectic; problem-reaction-solution.
zzz3856 said – “She was really worried about everyone losing their jobs…”
Perhaps they should be more worried about losing their lives.
A while back I had the occasion to catch a young Woolworths staffer who “fainted” while on her break and buying some chocolate (as young women seem to do) in the self-serve checkout area.
Actually, she didn’t so much “faint” as just collapse because she got dizzy and her legs went numb.
After trying to make her comfortable on the floor there, I had to go find another staffer to come do something about it. Three Woolworths employees came and picked her up and took her out ther back. Never saw her again.
Just BTW, ALL the people working in the big retailers were FORCED to get INJECTED or lose their jobs. Surprise! Get ready for the NEXT round of injections to save us all from creepy Bill’s NEXT big naughty super-virus.
Not that these bastards plan to HAVE any employees in future – they’re betting on MOST of us being DEAD, and the rest TRAPPED in Smeagol Harari’s wet dream of human livestock coralled in “SMART cities” – where SMART doesn’t mean “smart”, it’s an ACRONYM for “Surveillance Monitoring And Reporting Technology”.
Is anyone noticing a certain CONVERGENCE with the shit now being rolled out by the major retailers here?
Get INJECTED to keep your job and DIE, or REFUSE it and lose your job and get LOCKED OUT OF SOCIETY and DIE (and they’ll eventually send the shit-for-brains hired mercenaries impersonating “police” around to drag you off to a “Quarantine Camp” just to MAKE SURE you get INJECTED and DIE). I’d call that a mighty big WIN-WIN if I was a genocidal mass-murdering baby-eating Luciferian Globalist psychopath.
It’s all just part of a BIGGER PICTURE, folks – where they get their Great Reset and New World Order and we’re all DEAD. And ALL of the major retailers have been IN ON IT from the VERY START – because they LIKE what they see and they all want a big PIECE of the pie.
BOYCOTT these bastards, get OUT of the major banks, use CASH, support your local shops and markets and start growing your OWN food any way you can. Martin Armstrong says we’ve got another 10 years of this rolling Globalist BS to live through, so clench those butt cheeks and GET ORGANISED.
Forget IGA.
If your local council doesn’t have a farmers market, you can go to their meeting and ask 3 questions from the lectern just like question time in parliament.
Ask them why there’s no farmers market.
Ask them why they don’t float shares for their latest developers dream investments of your money.
Ask them if they have had any communications with Klaus Swab and the WEF.
If they say no go to the front desk and ask for any of it under Freedom of Information.
Agree with Tony B – boycott – spread the word. There are other places to shop – start frequenting farmer’s markets also.
Actually a check out lady told me at Coles last week that soon everything will be automated there, no cashiers at all.. She was really worried about everyone losing their jobs – they are very short staffed as it is she said, and that’s why they are not employing any extra people… soon it will all be robotic.
No doubt Woolies will be the same. I never use their current self serve as I consider each machine to be someone’s job. I will not be going to any supermarket that uses these and will find a smaller outlet to shop.
Unfortunately I think most Australians will not care because they are too blind to see what is happening or to even join the dots. Nearly everyone I see is still using pay wave or their phone and not cash… the same people are still buying newspapers to read !!!
Lol the coons with just steal your trolly once you walk out of the store
I saw a dude squirt a camera with a bottle of sauce he just happened to find on the shelf .
boycott boycott boycott hit their bottom line where it hurts
Just one more way to get people used to surveillance. I don’t shop at coles or woollies. Might be we’ll end up at the corner shop where hopefully there will be cash and no surveillance. At least not to that extent. They might need to bring their prices down a bit but that could happen with increased numbers. I do shop quite a bit locally. Butchers, bakery, deli, chemist , PO etc.
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