Retail Theft Detection Using Customer Product Counting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for preventing illegal product removal from stores require heavy processing loads on computers to determine and count products taken up by customers, leading to inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus that detects product uptake using captured images and generates customer information associating the number of times a product is taken up, setting the count to zero upon payment, thereby reducing processing load by eliminating the need to precisely count products.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the system determines all products that a customer takes up and counts the number of products, then the accuracy of detecting illegal carrying-out is improved, but the processing load on the computer increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential information needed for theft detection - the count of products taken up by each customer - rather than processing complete product identification data. By using image recognition to simply count products per customer and associating this with customer identifiers, the system achieves sufficient detection accuracy while dramatically reducing processing complexity compared to analyzing each product's details.
2Reliability
If the system processes and counts all taken up products to determine illegal carrying-out, then the reliability of theft prevention is improved, but the time required for processing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by performing only the minimum necessary processing - counting products per customer using image recognition and associating counts with customer IDs - rather than fully processing each product's identification and payment status. This partial processing approach maintains sufficient reliability for detecting suspicious patterns while significantly reducing processing time.
3Loss of information
If the system monitors and counts each product taken up by customers, then the completeness of customer information is improved, but the complexity of information management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the critical customer behavior metric - the number of products taken up by each customer - and associates this with customer identifiers. This extracted information is sufficient for detecting illegal carrying-out patterns without requiring management of complete product-level details, thereby reducing information management complexity while maintaining detection effectiveness.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing apparatus (2000) detects that a customer (30) takes up a product from a display area (20), using a captured image (12). The information processing apparatus (2000) generates information (customer information) indicating the acquisition count by the customer (30) in a manner that is associated with an identifier of the customer (30). The information processing apparatus 2000 sets the acquisition count, which is indicated by the customer information on the customer (30), in a case where the customer (30) makes payment for the products, to zero.