Social Media and Shoplifting

Social media has brought many changes to businesses around the world.  One of the biggest changes that many businesses take advantage of with social media platforms, is the ability to market their business without spending thousands of dollars doing so. Marketing is not only for the big 500 companies, now the small mom and pop shop can and does market their business using social media as well.

It is no wonder then, that business owners are using social media to protect themselves, and warn other businesses  of potential shoplifters.  By posting video and written posts using Facebook and other mediums, businesses are taking security in their own hands.

Home Depot responds after firing Pearland employee who chased shoplifters

A former Pearland Home Depot employee who tried to stop three shoplifters was fired because his actions could have endangered employees or the general public, a Home Depot spokesman said Monday.

According to an interview given by former employee Jim Tinney to KTRK, Tinney saw three men attempting to leave the store in June, with tool sets they had not paid for. Tinney attempted to stop them by throwing an object at their feet.

Tinney did not immediately return calls to the Chronicle for information.

Home Depot’s policy prevents employees from attempting to stop shoplifters, said Stephen Holmes, director of corporate communications

Washington’s New Biometric Privacy Law: What Businesses Need to Know

With the rise in hackings and data breaches, companies and government agencies are looking for ways to protect their data that offer more security than passwords. Because passwords are easily lost, stolen, guessed, and cracked by hackers, companies are shifting to the use of biological characteristics that uniquely identify you, called biometric identifiers. For example, financial institutions and online retailers are developing ways to authenticate a purchase by requiring a user to take a selfie and smile, wink, or make another gesture. A stolen password could be easily reused, but faking a user’s arbitrary facial expression is more complicated.

But along with the strength of biometric identifiers comes new risks. When hackers steal your password, you change it. But when hackers acquire your fingerprint or facial scan, you can’t change either. Indeed, biometric identifiers are often selected for their permanence. For example, many companies are investing in scanners that identify a person based on the pattern of veins in their fingertip, rather than their fingerprint. A person’s vascular identity is harder to forge than a fingerprint and it changes less over time.

Recent rash of shoplifting infuriates business owners

Juneau store owners turn to social media to ID suspects

A recent rash of shoplifters has caused local business owners to take to social media, posting surveillance video screenshots in the hopes of identifying the perpetrators and warning other storekeepers.

In one suspect’s case, she was quickly identified as having hit two different businesses in one week — and the same woman has been charged in a shoplifting at downtown store Shoefly a little more than a month ago.

With the exception of the woman charged in connection with the shoplifting incident at Shoefly, the Empire is not printing the names of the suspects as identified on social media, because they have not been arrested or charged.