[gumby]

> I can easily see a system like this ending up like credit rating bureaus with a few large companies aggregating data into a score which stores can use to deny entry.

I'm sure the big three credit bureaux are developing precisely this product.

The stores need not even ban you: they could adjust their prices on a per customer basis to cover their expected risk.

Come to think of it, the insurance companies could get in on the action. The shop gets shoplifting coverage in its insurance package. It prices the tin of soup at $1. You pay $1 because you have a good "theft rating". I pay $1.20 because I have a moderate miscreant rating. The little lcd on the shelf will show $1.20 as the price when I look at it, $1 when you look. The shop keeps $1 from you, $1.05 from me and forwards the other $0.15 to the insurance shoplifting risk pool. Shoplifting claims are paid out of the pool.

And by the way I am a hardcore non-lawbreaker (actually this is true) but it doesn't matter to the shops or insurance companies if I am mis-rated. Everybody wins! Except me.

[Simulacra]

You might be interested in a book from long ago called No Place to Hide by O'Harrow. In 2004 he discussed Target, Home Depot, and shopping malls using mobile phone identification to collect and classify customers. This is just the next logical step. I would be very surprised if major retailers are not already using facial recognition software.

[gumby]

> I would be very surprised if major retailers are not already using facial recognition software.

Big retail chains are already doing this.

I believe I read on HN a few years ago that Facebook had a product for retail shops that did this. Couldn't find anything on the web though.

[AdamJacobMuller]

> I'm sure the big three credit bureaux are developing precisely this product.

Probably. Again I'm super libertarian but the 3 credit bureaus in the US need a corporate death penalty.

> they could adjust their prices on a per customer basis to cover their expected risk

I'm not sure that works because the risk here is someone just refusing to pay the displayed price at all, regardless of what it is.

If anything, stores would use this kind of technology to do stratified pricing depending on what they think you can afford and are willing to pay. More affluent people would be charged more for the exact same box of crackers.

[gumby]

> More affluent people would be charged more for the exact same box of crackers.

Or less, because they buy more stuff, and luring them into your store, especially for repeat visits, is worth it.

This is how it works today, just not to this level of granularity. Poor people can't buy the value size because they don't have the cash flow. Costco customers save a lot of money -- but they have big enough houses to store the large sizes.

It's really expensive to be poor.