{"id":492531,"date":"2026-01-04T20:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/492531\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T20:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:30:10","slug":"your-face-and-voice-are-being-collected-at-these-beloved-nyc-grocery-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/492531\/","title":{"rendered":"Your face and voice are being collected at these beloved NYC grocery stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 New York City Wegmans locations are now collecting your biometric data as you shop. <\/p>\n

In a new phase of a 2024 pilot program, shoppers who frequent the Manhattan and Brooklyn storefronts \u2014 and any other passersby who happen to stop in \u2014 could have their likeness (features like face and eyes) and voice collected by the grocery store chain. <\/p>\n

According to the Gothamist<\/a>, this biometric data \u201cis used to \u2018protect the safety and security of our patrons and employees,\u2019 according to signage.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWegmans representatives did not reply to questions about how the data would be stored, why it changed its policy or if it would share the data with law enforcement,\u201d the Gothamist wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

During the pilot program, the data collected was specifically of employees; had customer\u2019s data been collected, it would have been deleted. <\/p>\n

Such a policy has not been announced for the New York City locations so far. <\/p>\n

The use of facial recognition in New York City businesses is a hotly debated topic, with the City Council even drafting legislation to prohibit such practices from being implemented. <\/p>\n

That legislation, introduced in 2023, has yet to pass. <\/p>\n

In 2024, the sponsor of the bill, Councilmember Shahana Hanif, made this comment<\/a>: \u201cSince this bill was heard last session, there have been countless developments that have made this the passage of this bill more urgent than ever, including wrongful arrests and data leaks \u2014 but the event that stands out the most to me is the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s finding in December that the pharmacy chain RiteAid used facial recognition technology to falsely and disproportionately identify thousands of people of color and women as likely shoplifters, including those right here in New York City,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 New York City Wegmans locations are now collecting your biometric data as you shop.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":492532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-492531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115838728576301536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}