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Oh! There's actually good reason!

If you have an Extracare card, in some markets, you can self-unlock the locked display cabinets with the CVS app (because they have your identity via the ExtraCare card which adds inherent trust).

It's powered by the Invue smartlock platform. https://invue.com/smart-locks

https://abc7ny.com/post/cvs-testing-new-nyc-shoppers-open-ca...

by therein6 hours ago|

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Very interesting. But I'd imagine they aren't doing proper KYC to get an ExtraCare card, I bet it is very soft KYC. Like phone number verification or card payment which you can get anonymously, so it won't necessarily do too much to find the perpetrator. I wonder if it works through throttling and blacklisting so the loss and damage radius are reduced.

by kotaKat3 hours ago|

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At the same time, though, the thought is "a criminal won't give out their business burner's cellphone number" to sign up for a card/unlock a case. There's still an additional level of self-selection required to be honest enough to want to acquire the loyalty card that a "dishonest" person does not want to spend time doing (they want to snatch and run).

Same reason Walmart gated the self-checkout Scan-and-Go-via-phone system behind a paid membership on Walmart+, criminal's not gonna burn fifty bucks to steal a couple times if they have to hand over anything vaguely close to PII, even if it's burner PII.

by ButlerianJihad13 hours ago|

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Ah, are you telling us that while people were outraged about rampant theft and pointing to all the locked-up merchandise as emblematic of the corporate response to rampant theft, even while there wasn't enough staff to unlock the cabinets... but the lockups are also a way to entice customers to install the app, sign up for an account, and enable Bluetooth all the time?

https://youtu.be/zS9U3Gc832Y?si=BmVOHE6ahKLbw82c

by mjdiloreto13 hours ago|

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Are you telling us we're being increasingly policed by technology?

Yes! This is part of the Flockification of everything.

by kotaKat13 hours ago|

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I mean, I didn't go to the worse version. Step right up to the little display, enter your phone number, smile for the camera, and the case unlocks magically!

https://indyme.com/solutions/freedom-case

The CV footage just adds that extra comfortable feeling, doesn't it?

https://indyme.com/hubfs/E6A61CF7-E252-4994-91E1-0FC0E88781F...

It's "freedom" for "honest shoppers"!

by gs1712 hours ago|

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Even better, they have a model called the "Freedom Cage"!

by kccqzy8 hours ago|

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> when something breaks the app will tell me.

Then you have to require these permission controls to tell the app the user denied permission, and not just giving a valid but empty result. Some people on HN feel strongly that when you deny contacts permission to an app, the app should receive a list of dummy contacts. Without it a bad app can lock its UI and not do anything unless the permission is granted.

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