Kristen Schwab

Before businesses had cameras to keep an eye on shoplifters, they had notes.

John Talbot is a lecturer of marketing at Indiana University.

These days, cameras track eye movements, voice patterns, and gait.

Talbot says the technology also helps offer new services to customers, like checkoutless checkout.

Amazon uses palm-to-pay technology at some Amazon Go and Whole Foods stores.

Convenience, though, often comes with costs.

Maybe in this case, actual monetary ones.

Woodrow Hartsog is a law professor at Boston University.

Retailers might learn this through data on, say, how long we linger in the cookie aisle, deciding between off-brand Oreos and the real thing.

Because creepy personal data stuff aside, the technology can be flawed.

Rite Aid has been temporarily banned from using AI facial recognition after its system falsely targeted women and people of color as shoplifters.

Erin Martin, a data scientist at the University of Virginia, says there aren't a lot of ways shoppers can opt out.

There's currently no federal rule that requires retailers to disclose customer surveillance.

Privacy laws vary by city and state.

I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace.

We're from APM, American Public Media.

Another day, another potential tariff change.

And Noah Namowitz, COO of Cafe Imports in Minneapolis, has a lot of tariffs to keep tabs on.

From Indonesia to Ethiopia to Peru, the company imports coffee from something like 30 different countries, including some on the exemption list.

He says any tariff relief helps, but it's likely not going to have a huge impact on prices.