A SELF-DESCRIBED former Walmart employee has claimed that self-checkout stations are able to photograph customers and store their personal information.
The TikTok user, who has almost 200,000 followers, had gotten lots of attention for her previous videos on the department store's anti-theft measures.
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Shoplifting is a major problem for outlets such asWalmart, with reports of self-checkout-related theft becoming more widespread in recent years.
In her latest post, @AshtheTruth21 alleged that the popular retail store will go to great lengths to ensure that shoplifters are held accountable.
"So you see those little machines rights there?" the ex-employee asked.
In the first clip of her video, she showed off a white counter space featuring two built-in screens. On its exterior, the station doesn't appear much different from a typical self-checkout kiosk.
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However, the past employee suggested that advanced technology is watching every move that customers make.
"I told y'all about the cameras they have that can see into your phone? Well, those ones at the register are ten times worse my dude," she warned.
She said Walmart uses cameras to take photos of shoppers each time they scan something at self-checkout.
"Let me just tell you, every time you run your card through a Walmart scanner, they have a note of it," she added. "They can find you through your credit card."
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The woman went as far as to claim that Walmart keeps all their shoppers' personal information in the store's storage system as a permanent file.
She pointed out that the store has already been doing a similar version of this sort of surveillance.
"And before these cameras were a thing, they were already doing that my dude," she explained.
"Every purchase that you make with a card, they can pull up date and time information and pull up the camera footage and see what you purchased, when you purchased it..." she noted.
The Walmart critic also had a word of advice for anyone who may want to protect their information or may or not be doing "janky s**t."
"Use cash and cover your ID," she instructed. "Those cameras can read into your Wallet. And they do. F**k Walmart bro."
In the comments section, many of @AshtheTruth21's followers were also up in arms over the new technology.
"They paid for all this but can’t raise their minimum wage or hire enough people," one person noted.
Other people pointed out that the Walmart app already keeps shoppers' personal information.
"Yup, if I swipe my card in store my purchase will show up in my Walmart app. The app knows when u walk into the store," another frustrated customer added.
Some TikTok users suggested that Walmart's security system is not much different than other major retail stores.
"Target has been doing this for a while. They just made it super obvious. you can look at the screen above the register and see yourself," a third person commented.
@AshtheTruth21 and her followers are not the only people fed up with self-checkout stations.
Other Walmart shoppers have admitted that the new features should help to curb thefts, but the technology is not user-friendly.
In Dallas, Texas, a customer reported that they had to use handheld devices to scan their groceries individually.
She suggested robots should scan and bag goods for shoppers and believed it wouldn’t eradicate theft from Walmart stores completely.
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Only time will tell if the new self-checkout technology can further evolve to meet security demands and improve customer experience.
Walmart has not immediately responded to the U.S. Sun's request for comment.
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