LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
Australian supermarkets have announced bold plans to reduce theft (by customers) on their premises.
At the time of writing, 40% of Australian stores including Coles, Woolworths and Bunnings, use some sort of ‘crime prediction technology’ to profile all shoppers and figure out which one of them is going to commit an Ocean’s 11 style heist.
Other invasive technologies such as facial recognition continue to roll out in supermarkets with the aim of stopping theft which is pretty rich considering some of them are charging $7 for a bloody packet of chips these days.
In the easiest ever game of ‘connect the dots’, increased prices of every single item in the supermarket have meant that more people have tried to do a cheeky bit of home brand special setting but have found staff much less understanding than when they were in uni.
Increasingly, supermarket chains have a growing list of shoppers banned for theft, bans which range from 12 months to five years and apply for all supermarkets in that chain. Yes, stealing is a crime but is it really any more of a crime than $7 for a bloody packet of Honey Soy Chicken chips?
“These security measures are made with customer safety in mind,” stated a Woolworths spokesperson, as if anyone has ever been killed while scanning a packet of Crunchy Nut as a brown onion.
“We are very fortunate to have the money to invest in this technology due to our record profits and how we’ve only had to pay 15% of what we paid for checkout staff ten years ago.”
“Life’s good huh?”
MORE TO COME.
