High-tech dummies to record conversations

Just when you thought it was impossible for surveillance to get any creepier, a company has announced it has created mannequins with cameras installed inside that can be used to spy on shoppers and record their conversations – and that they’ve already been rolled out at numerous fashion stores across the world.

The EyeSee mannequin, developed by Italian firm Almax, relies on technology used to identify criminals in airports that utilizes facial recognition software to identify the race, age and gender of the shopper and feeds that information back to a centralized database. The camera is embedded in the eye of the mannequin.

The company refused to divulge which retailers were using the mannequins, but acknowledged that they were already being used in three European countries and in the United States. CEO Max Catanese added that five major luxury fashion retailers had deployed “a few dozen” of the mannequins, with orders for many more.

The company is planning to update the technology inside the $5,000 dollar mannequins to enable them to listen in on shoppers’ conversations as they walk around the store.

The surveillance devices are ostensibly used to build a profile of what type of shoppers are entering the store, at what times and what they are looking at. However, privacy campaigners expressed concern that the technology was just another example of the commercial sector turning to Big Brother in a bid to increase profits.

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