Amazon Is Selling Its Cashierless Checkout to Other Stores — What Happens to the Data?
Automatically charging customers for items they pick off of shelves involves far more tracking data than what is collected by a security camera
Earlier this week, Amazon announced that it would sell the technology used in its cashierless Amazon Go stores to other retailers. For an undisclosed price, retailers can now fit their stores with Amazon cameras, sensors, and payment systems that keep track of customers as they pick up items and automatically charge their cards when they leave, all without asking them to pause to complete a transaction.
The checkout system, called Just Walk Out, necessarily has to track an immense amount of data about both products and customers. Amazon Go stores that prototyped the system use hundreds of traditional cameras augmented with depth sensors and built-in boards that perform basic motion tracking, and weight sensors to detect how many units of a product are still on the shelf.
What happens to that data once third-party retailers start using the system is still unclear.
Retailers already use rewards programs and purchase history to analyze consumer buying habits, and routinely test different…
