Your comment spurred my interest because I would think the cameras looked like normal cameras. They don't though, they're huge. The FTC report has more details about their alert and training practices: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023190_riteaid...

There's also a bunch of "enrollment" store employees did that they're kind of murky on. The whole thing is a shit show from what I read under "Rite Aid’s Enrollment Practices":

21. In connection with its use of facial recognition technology, Rite Aid created, or directed its facial recognition vendors to create, an enrollment database of images of individuals whom Rite Aid considered “persons of interest,” including because Rite Aid believed the individuals had engaged in actual or attempted criminal activity at a Rite Aid physical retail location or because Rite Aid had obtained law enforcement “BOLO” (“Be On the Look Out”) information about the individuals. Individual entries in this database are referred to herein as “enrollments.” Enrollments in the Rite Aid database included images of the individuals (“enrollment images”) along with accompanying information, including, to the extent known, individuals’ first and last names, individuals’ years of birth, and information related to criminal or “dishonest” behavior in which individuals had allegedly engaged.

22. Rite Aid regularly used low-quality enrollment images in its database. Rite Aid obtained enrollment images by, among other methods, excerpting images captured via Rite Aid’s closed-circuit television (“CCTV”) cameras, saving photographs taken by the facial recognition cameras, and by taking photographs of individuals using mobile phone cameras. On a few occasions, Rite Aid obtained enrollment images from law enforcement or from media reports. In some instances, Rite Aid employees enrolled photographs of individuals’ driver’s licenses or other government identification cards or photographs of images displayed on video monitors.

23. Rite Aid trained store-level security employees to “push for as many enrollments as possible.” Rite Aid enrolled at least tens of thousands of individuals in its database.

24. It was Rite Aid’s general practice to retain enrollment images indefinitely.

Reuters has more details on the cameras themselves: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-rite...

> The cameras were easily recognizable, hanging from the ceiling on poles near store entrances and in cosmetics aisles. Most were about half a foot long, rectangular and labeled either by their model, “iHD23,” or by a serial number including the vendor’s initials, “DC.” In a few stores, security personnel – known as loss prevention or asset protection agents – showed Reuters how they worked.

> The cameras matched facial images of customers entering a store to those of people Rite Aid previously observed engaging in potential criminal activity, causing an alert to be sent to security agents’ smartphones. Agents then reviewed the match for accuracy and could tell the customer to leave.

The FTC report also says that while they employees were sent details used to confirm the match they were never sent confidence scores while any and all matches were sent to employees as alerts.