I just went to get a sandwich. The ordering is (optionally) done via kiosk. This time, the kiosk started suggesting items for me based on what I’d purchased before. I was initially puzzled as to how it could recognize me prior to any identifying information being input, then realized that there was a small camera embedded in the kiosk, and that it must have done facial recognition.

Identifying customers isn’t new; I understand that facial recognition has been used by grocery stores for loss prevention, to help flag people likely to steal things. But I wasn’t aware that it’d reached the point of sticking all purchases into a database, regardless of the usual methods to obtain a unique identifier, like loyalty cards or obtaining a phone number.

Assuming that this becomes the norm, short of wearing a mask — which is a pain, and runs into anti-masking laws in some areas — I don’t see how one can realistically avoid having all of one’s purchasing being placed into a store’s database for data-mining. That kind of bugs me — I’d like to be able to do stuff like purchase a sandwich without having the store profile me.

Thoughts? Ways to counter it? Okay with this/not okay?