A small new sign at the ShopRite on McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn has shoppers suddenly wondering how closely they are being watched. The notice, which appeared this week, warns that the store may collect biometric information, including facial features, eye characteristics and voice data. Several customers say the sign is so easy to miss that they only spotted it after someone pointed it out, and they are now asking what happens to their images once they walk back out the automatic doors.
As reported by News 12, the notice sits near the entrance and many shoppers told the station they did not see it at first. “It’s like an invasion of my privacy,” one shopper told News 12. Another asked bluntly, “Does it get erased? Do they sell it?” The station says it reached out to ShopRite for answers and was still waiting for a response.
What the sign and ShopRite materials say
Other reporting shows that signs and linked notices for some ShopRite locations describe the cameras as collecting “face geometry” and send customers to a company notice through a QR code. Wakefern, the parent company of ShopRite, has told reporters that biometric tools are used to identify organized retail crime and repeat offenders, and that data not matched to enrolled images is purged every 90 days. The company has also said that footage is regularly deleted, never sold, and may be shared with law enforcement when a crime occurs, according to CT Insider.
Retailers point to theft, privacy groups push back
Retail chains say these systems are one more tool to handle rising shoplifting. Privacy advocates counter that the technology quietly expands surveillance, can chill immigrant communities that already feel under a microscope, and can misidentify people of color. Earlier coverage of similar biometric signage at Wegmans stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn stirred public pushback and renewed interest from New York City lawmakers, a debate Gothamist has followed closely.
What the law requires, and what it does not
New York City’s Local Law requires covered businesses that collect biometric identifiers to post a notice using a sign prescribed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and it forbids selling those identifiers. The Department has published templates and rules spelling out how those notices should look and what they must say, as laid out in the DCWP rules. At the same time, enforcement tools are limited, and lawmakers in other states have signaled interest in stricter limits after similar reporting.
Back on McDonald Avenue, shoppers who spoke to the station say they want bigger, clearer signs and plainspoken explanations about how long their data is kept and who it is shared with. For now, the posted notice near the entrance is the only public information shoppers see at that doorway, and some say they will be watching to see whether ShopRite eventually responds to reporters’ questions.
