Mall of America deploys Corsight facial recognition after gun incidents

Retailers are actively exploring and deploying facial recognition and analysis as part of their security and loss-prevention strategies to safeguard their customers and employees, margins and profitability. Corsight AI provides both face biometrics and computer vision analytics, and has a major new client to showcase its capabilities.

Mall of America (MOA) has integrated facial recognition into its security infrastructure, joining forces with Corsight AI to implement its facial recognition system, which MOA lauds for its high accuracy, reliability, and privacy protection. There have been several firearms incidents at MOA over the past several years.

The biometric system identifies Persons of Interest (POIs), including banned individuals or those trespassing at the mall, people who may pose a threat to the safety and security of the mall environment, individuals identified by law enforcement, and missing persons.

The security system operates by uploading photographs of POIs into a facial recognition database. The database is then matched in real-time scans of faces within the mall. The system is designed to only search for matches against these specific photos (1:1 matching).

If a match is detected, the system generates an alert. Following the initial alert, the security team conducts a thorough investigation using a three-tiered approach. The MOA security team has received training from an internationally recognized program, encompassing the identification of facial morphological features and the skills required to compare and verify faces.

“At 5.6 million square feet, our officers cannot be everywhere at once. Utilizing this cutting-edge technology will allow us to more quickly do what we are already doing: identifying individuals of interest and keeping Mall of America and its guests safe. We take safety very seriously and we are continually evolving our strategies to enhance our security efforts,” says Will Bernhjelm, vice president of security at Mall of America.

Corsight’s facial recognition platform goes beyond security surveillance, and is also intended to enhance the overall experience. It recognizes repeat customers, allowing retailers to offer personalized services and rewards. Additionally, the system can identify customers who may require assistance, enabling staff to provide timely help. Those features are not implemented at MOA, however.

Corsight facial recognition for unique visitor counting for retailers

According to a report from Infotech, retailers are emphasizing AI-powered systems, such as mobile surveillance units, AI-driven fraud analytics for stores, body-worn cameras for employees, and facial recognition for loss prevention. Although only 3 percent of respondents actively use facial recognition, 40 percent of respondents are actively researching this technology.

In a retail environment, the conversion rate of visitors to buyers is a key metric for evaluating performance and making well-informed business decisions. At the NRF APAC retail exhibition in Singapore, Corsight is demonstrating how its facial recognition platform enhances the accuracy of visitor counting.

Historically, retailers have relied on methods such as pressure mats, infrared beam counters, and thermal imaging, all of which often introduce significant biases and inaccuracies. These methods typically struggle to differentiate between unique visitors and repeated entries.

Corsight states that its facial recognition can filter out staff members and other non-customers from the visitor count. This is because the platform is designed to operate even in crowded retail environments and under challenging conditions, such as low visibility, poor video quality, limited camera angles, and outdoor darkness.

“In addition to accurate visitor counting, Corsight AI’s technology offers benefits such as effective queue management, watchlist alerting for known threats and suspicious patterns, protection of restricted areas, and enforcement of vendor policies,” says Sunny Kong, vice president for Sales of Corsight AI Singapore.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Corsight  |  facial recognition  |  Minnesota  |  retail biometrics  |  video surveillance