Vsblty lands new retail deal, deploys facial recognition to enhance security of synagogues
Vsblty, the retail analytics and biometric surveillance provider, has announced two new deals that will employ the company’s retail expertise in Mexico and protect synagogues against antisemitic attacks in the U.S.
The first deal is a $500,000-worth purchasing order to provide neighborhood bodegas in Mexico City with product recognition software and point-of-sale purchase validation. The first phase of the test program will be completed by the first quarter of 2024 in cooperation with unnamed partners, the company says in a release.
“Using Vsblty’s suite of computer vision software, we can create solutions to recognize any kind of product, automatically validate sales, and build anonymized analytics that will enlighten retail management and directly link media views in retail with improvements in impulse purchases,” says Vsblty Co-founder and CEO Jay Hutton.
The move is part of a wider strategy introduced by the company back in August.
The Philadelphia, U.S.-headquartered firm offers retail technology such as in-store advertising displays which use computer vision to analyze how long are shoppers watching the message.
In October it acquired Shelf Nine which owns 4,500 screens displaying digital in-store advertising throughout the U.S. Recently, it also received a patent for anonymous face detection that shops could use to determine which advertisement to serve particular shoppers.
Vsblty also sells security products that can track known offenders with live facial recognition, as well as recognize weapons and report suspicious behavior. The company announced this month that its surveillance solution will be deployed across more U.S. synagogues.
The system will be deployed to protect congregations against civilian attacks which have increased since hostilities erupted between Israel and Hamas. Vslbty is already providing its security technology for several of America’s largest synagogues, including one in New England. The CCTV cameras use Vsblty’s facial recognition software Vector to detect “persons of interest,” weapons and other threats.
In the one month between October 7 and November 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism documented more than 800 antisemitic incidents across the U.S, including assault, vandalism and harassment, a 316 percent increase compared to the same period in 2022.
“By significantly extending the safety perimeter, our proactive security approach is intended to prevent, rather than merely detect, violent incidents and save lives. With the troubling increase in religion-based violence this year, we are experiencing further demand for our AI-driven security technology,” Hutton adds.
