I was at Woolworths the other day buying some groceries and I went through one of those
self-service checkouts. You know the ones. The ones that take a video of your face up close in
the top right-hand corner. (Although, it should be noted that Woolworths have said that these aren’t
being recorded, “As we’ve said, the image is just a reflection on the screen & is not recorded”).
But they’ve managed to add a new feature this year that is equally annoying. The donation prompt.
Basically, just before you pay for your shopping, the self-service screen brings up a prompt which
asks you to make a donation by rounding up your bill to the nearest dollar. Of course,
what did mug me do? I accidentally pressed the “yes” button. At first I thought, “I’ll just pay
the damn donation”, but then I said to myself, “No, I didn’t come here to make a donation.
Already the cost of living is high enough. If I want to make a donation, I’ll make it in my
own time, not while I’m buying groceries” So I called the lady over, and of course,
she was all pissed off. I was probably only the 50th person that day to make the same mistake.
She told me I had to push the “No” button if I didn’t want to make a donation. I said, “Thanks,
I’ll remember that for next time”. She fumbled around for about two minutes trying to get the
machine to cancel the transaction, but it was just not going her way and she was clearly getting more
and more pissed off. Finally she just told me that I’d have to go over to a different machine and
re-scan my items, and of course told me again that I had to make sure to press the “No” button this
time if I don’t want to make a donation. I could have reacted, but I thought, “What’s the point?”.
I mean, Woolworths are the ones who put this stupid feature on their self-service checkouts.
I don’t think it benefits customers in any way. Woolworths take millions of our 50-cent donations,
and then pass it off as their own. The customers don’t actually get any credit for it. Thanks Brad.
In this article published in The Guardian on 11 October this year, “Nearly a fifth of Australia’s
Covid vaccine stock binned amid warning of fresh wave of cases”, Professor Adrian Esterman,
chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia stated, “Two doses
alone [of a COVID vaccine] offer little defence from the new variants, with protection from
serious illnesses and hospitalisation waning over time”. But yet, Woolworths are still enforcing
that all their staff have two doses of a COVID vaccine. They even have a Chief Medical Officer,
Dr Rob McCartney. He is quoted as saying on their website, “The medical evidence is
clear – vaccination is the best protection against COVID-19 for our team members. A vaccinated team
member is far less likely to get COVID, much less likely to pass it on, and also significantly less
likely to become seriously ill”. I think Woolworths need to hire some fact-checkers.
Not to mention that “a leaked Woolworths employee training module slide claims that
it is using ‘artificial intelligence and facial mapping’ in its stores — but the
company denies it is using the technology”. “Did You Know? Our high standard CCTV
is already resulting in offenders being arrested by police. We are
using technology like artificial intelligence and facial mapping to identify offenders!”.
But every month, there seems to be more news about Woolworths surveillance. In August,
“Woolworths expanding surveillance of customers. Privacy policy not keeping up with spying on
shoppers”. In September, “Aussies vow to boycott Woolworths after the supermarket installs
controversial new surveillance systems”. And just last month, “New Woolworths technology tracks
the carbon footprint of customer purchases to ensure personal emission targets are met”. Okay,
that last one I made up, but it sounds like something that Woolworths might do, right?
So they’ve got surveillance cameras on their self-service checkouts. They’re fleecing customers
of millions of dollars of donations every year and then passing it off as their own. They're
forcing their workers to get vaccinated. And they’re potentially using facial recognition technology,
which they deny. Does anybody else think Woolworths are becoming like a fascist state?
Fascism (noun): Any right-wing, authoritarian,
nationalist ideology characterised by centralised, totalitarian governance,
strong regimentation of the economy and of society, and repression of criticism
or opposition. (Figuratively) Any extreme reliance or enforcement of rules and regulations.
We’re Woolworths The Fascist People!