Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/62026
is not designed to do any of that, but there are still suggestions its users need to do more to inform consumers about what's going on." In fact, at least one mall has tried — and rejected — facial-recognition technology for surveillance and se- curity. In January 2005 Zuidplein Shopping Centre, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tested a system produced by U.K.-based LogicaCMG that had reportedly identified 90 percent of known, habitual shoplifters in the mall's public areas. The platform did this by comparing security-camera im- ages against a criminal database. The managers at the time "did talk about it and investigated it, but it was never taken in use," said mall manager Else Veuger in an e-mail. "We could not for privacy reasons." AVA system vendors express the hope that they can avoid this privacy trap and tap what they see as a vast new market. "Today's retail envi- ronment is an analog model await- ing a digital transformation," Sosa told the audience at the TED event, "Today's retail environment is an analog model awaiting a digital transformation." CONFERENCE 7 !4,!.4! -)$4/7. s !4,!.4! *5,9 TOP 5 REASONS TO ATTEND: 1. Develop business opportunities for your organization 2. Access to industry leaders 3. Expand your contacts 4. Build industry networks 5. Educational opportunities SPEAKERS INCLUDE: 'REG -ALONEY, President & Chief Executive Officer, Jones Lang LaSalle, Atlanta, GA 4OM #APUTO President, Equity One, New York, NY SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY: Please contact Ester Vivona, ICSC at evivona@icsc.org or +1 646 728 3647 For more information visit WWW ICSC ORG 172 SCT / MAY 2012 .'# '! one of a lecture series organized as TEDxGotham. Yet with all that is happening in digital marketing, it may be some time yet before facial recognition gains acceptance among shopping centers, says Lisa Grimm, Mall of America's digital-brand manager. "We are considering a lot of things, of which facial-recognition software is a part," Grimm said. A higher pri- ority is making shopper information available seamlessly across all digital formats, she says, "drawing the right insights from the massive amount of data from our owned media proper- ties" — Facebook, Twitter and the mall's own blog among these. AVA has the potential to add value to the mall's digital strategy rather than drive it, Grimm says. "It's brand-new technology, and peo- ple need to hammer out some dif- ferent kinks," she said. "We want to make sure the technology we choose to employ doesn't have any experi- ential issues. You don't want to set something amazing up and then have it go the other route and create huge guest issues." SCT