authentication and age assurance

A widely-cited statistic from America’s National Retail Federation that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in retail theft in the country in 2021 was attributable to organized retail crime disappeared from the group’s report earlier this month. The figure for total theft by the shoplifting mafia, it seems, was drawn from congressional testimony later admitted to be mistaken. As the Los Angeles Times points out, this figure has been used to support arguments about the necessity of facial recognition in stores that now merit reconsideration