Welcome to the Surveillance Supermarket

Wegmans, a sprawling supermarket chain across the East coast, has started storing the biometric data of its NYC shoppers, as reported by Liam Quigley for Gothamist. The news was met with immediate and understandable uproar — enough that Wegmans released a public statement on Thursday that is just opaque enough to not really assuage any discomfort with the supermarket’s data collection policy. 

The biometric data is “only retained for as long as necessary,” according to the press release. (They do not disclose how long this may be.) The “persons of interest” are determined on a “case-by-case basis.” (Who is doing the determining and how it’s being determined is not made clear.) They “do not share facial recognition scan data with any third party.” (Though, it seems law enforcement is probably fair game.) Like a good press release, it obfuscates, but politely.   

The not-so-secret secret, however, is that the surveillance state is already here, and has been here for a long while.