How Gap Inc.'s LP Leader Also Helps Preserve the Planet

NRF Podcast Interview with Keith White, EVP of Loss Prevention
& Global Sustainability, Gap Inc.

Keith White has a unique title and position. As the executive vice president of loss prevention and global sustainability at Gap Inc., the skills and knowledge acquired through a career in loss prevention help him look at the bigger picture - much bigger than just himself or the company. "I feel like there's a better nexus between global sustainability and loss prevention," he says: In one way he's charged with the responsibility to protect the planet, in the other he's working to preserve it. On this episode, White joins the Retail Gets Real team to discuss emerging trends in the loss prevention world and how the apparel retailer is taking corporate social responsibility to the next level.

White sees three emerging trends in LP. First, active shooter and other emergency incidents are a growing threat. He stresses the importance of proper training for retail stores, team members, corporate headquarters and everyone on the supply chain so they are prepared to respond appropriately in emergency incidents. The opioid epidemic is "driving people who are educated and have access to wealth to make decisions or to do things that they typically wouldn't do," White says, "whether it's shoplifting behavior or it's violent behavior." He urges those in loss prevention to understand the effect the drug has on their businesses."

And he sees a rise in a lack of civility; the behavior of customers, and even employees in some cases, can get out of hand when they feel offended. "It just takes the slightest thing to set people off," he says. Store employees must be trained to deal with escalated customer behaviors.

Beyond protecting the enterprise, White has a message for those in loss prevention: "If you're singularly focused on just LP, and you're really good at it, you just might be at risk," he says, encouraging LP employees to be interested in topics beyond the field. "You don't want to be that person where they only see you as being one dimensional." At Gap, White took on more corporate projects including business continuity planning, which allowed him to hone the skills that opened the door to bigger projects. nrf.com

Company Payouts in Background-Check Class Actions Top $326 Million
Some of America's largest employers -- including Amazon, Target, Uber and Wells Fargo -- have routinely snooped on job applicants' credit records, legal histories and other personal matters in violation of federal rules, according to a corporate watchdog group. The revelations surfaced in a raft of class actions in recent years alleging that big companies improperly conducted background checks while vetting hundreds of thousands of prospective employees, according to Good Jobs First, which tracks corporate misconduct.

The group said this litigation led to employers paying out a total of $174 million over the past decade in settlements. Another $152 million was paid by background-check companies that provided those reports to employers. Job candidates sued the companies under the employment provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal law that seeks to ensure the accuracy, privacy and fairness of information on file with consumer reporting agencies, such as credit bureaus.

Since 2011 more than 40 employers have paid out FCRA employment settlements of $1 million or more. In one of the largest cases, Wells Fargo paid $12 million in 2016 to thousands of applicants. Other large payouts by well-known companies include: Target ($8.5 million), Uber Technologies ($7.5 million), Amazon.com ($5 million), Home Depot ($3 million), and Domino's Pizza ($2.5 million). cbsnews.com prnewswire.com

Should Retailers Hire More Ex-Cons?
With unemployment rates at or near historic lows, retailers sometimes look in different places to find good workers. According to a recent piece from Bloomberg, restaurant operators such as MOD Pizza, McDonald's and Firehouse Subs are hiring ex-criminals in order to fill the worker gap.

The website, 70 Million Jobs, is a job board that helps those with criminal records get hired. The site says they look for those who have been out of prison awhile and able to stay out of further trouble. Low-level drug offenders are eligible; those convicted of more serious crimes typically aren't. There seem to be other websites offering the same service and it appears that many mainstream retailers are now hiring former convicts.

A Fast Company piece says that 60 to 75 percent of those released from incarceration remain unemployed a year after their release. But, according to a poll cited in the same article, 78 percent of Americans are comfortable buying goods/services from a company that hires ex-cons. retailwire.com

Criminals are using deepfakes to impersonate CEOs,
and businesses are largely defenseless - for now
In the first signs of a mounting threat, criminals are starting to use deepfakes - starting with AI-generated audio - to impersonate CEOs and steal millions from companies, which are largely unprepared to combat them.

Why it matters: Nightmare scenarios abound. As deepfakes grow more sophisticated, a convincing forgery could send a company's stock plummeting (or soaring), to extract money or to ruin its reputation in a viral instant.

Imagine a convincing fake video or audio clip of Elon Musk, say, disclosing a massive defect the day before a big Tesla launch - the company's share price would crumple.

What's happening: For all the talk about fake videos, it's deepfake audio that has emerged as the first real threat to the private sector.

Symantec, a major cybersecurity company, says it has seen three successful audio attacks on private companies. In each, a company's "CEO" called a senior financial officer to request an urgent money transfer. Scammers were mimicking the CEOs' voices with an AI program that had been trained on hours of their speech - culled from earnings calls, YouTube videos, TED talks and the like. Millions of dollars were stolen from each company, whose names were not revealed. The attacks were first reported in the BBC.

Big picture: This threat is just beginning to emerge. Video and audio deepfakes are improving at a frightening pace and are increasingly easy to make. There's been an uptick in sophisticated audio attacks over the past year, says Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO of Pindrop, a company that protects call centers from scammers.

But businesses aren't ready, experts tell Axios. "I don't think corporate infrastructure is prepared for a world where you can't trust the voice or video of your colleague anymore," says Henry Ajder of Deeptrace, a deepfakes-detection startup.

Even if companies were clamoring for defenses, few tools exist to keep harmful deepfakes at bay, says Symantec's Saurabh Shintre. The challenge of automatically spotting a deepfake is almost insurmountable, and there are hurdles still ahead for a promising alternative: creating a digital breadcrumb trail for unaltered media. axios.com

Interactive Map: Here's where the US government is using facial recognition technology to surveil Americans
Across the US, government use of facial recognition technology, which critics say poses a serious threat to Americans' civil liberties, is on the rise. A new report released Thursday from digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future visualizes how often US law enforcement agencies use this software to scan through millions of Americans' photos - often without their knowledge or consent.

While the map isn't exhaustive, it is one of the most comprehensive guides showing how common and widespread facial recognition use is becoming. The map compiles existing data from the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, news reports, press releases, and other sources - showing where and how the government is applying facial recognition, as well as legislative challenges to the tech's rollout.

Some examples: In several states, including Texas, Florida, and Illinois, the FBI is allowed to use facial recognition technology to scan through DMV databases of drivers' license photos. In many US airports, Customs and Border Protection now uses facial recognition to screen passengers on international flights. And in cities such as Baltimore, police have used facial recognition software to identify and arrest individuals at protests. vox.com

Click image above to view the interactive map.
 

Judge dismisses lawsuit against Shaw's by family of woman murdered at Saco store
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Shaw's supermarkets brought by the family of a woman who was murdered by a knife-wielding attacker inside the company's Saco store in August 2015.

Wendy Boudreau, a 59-year-old grandmother, was grocery shopping when she was attacked by Connor MacCalister, 35. Boudreau died of her wounds and MacCalister pleaded guilty to murder less than two months later and was given a life sentence, which MacCalister requested.

The suit was brought by Jeffrey Boudreau, Wendy Boudreau's husband, and the personal representative to her estate. The action was filed in 2017 in U.S. District Court in Portland, and sought damages from the Massachusetts-based supermarket chain because Boudreau suffered conscious pain and suffering between the time of the attack and her moment of death at a nearby hospital, and alleged that the supermarket was culpable in Boudreau's wrongful death and had a duty to prevent it.

After extensive litigation, discovery and depositions, Judge D. Brock Hornby ruled Thursday that despite an extensive record of MacCalister's odd and sometimes disturbing behavior at or near the supermarket, Shaw's management could not have reasonably foreseen MacCallister's attack. journaltribune.com

Mooresville, NC: Lowe's employees fill pails with disaster relief supplies
What began as a Lowe's Home Improvement corporate response to Hurricane Harvey three years ago has transformed into an annual volunteer event that continued last week in Mooresville. The third annual Bucket Brigade occurred July 17 at Lowe's headquarters in southern Iredell County. More than 1,300 volunteers contributed time and energy throughout the day toward the assembly of 20,000 buckets filled with disaster relief supplies. To date, the Bucket Brigade has filled 55,000 buckets during its three years of volunteerism and catastrophe contributions.

Volunteers from corporate headquarters and the Statesville distribution center worked in teams to assemble the bucket donations. Each bucket contained various home improvement and cleaning supplies - trash bags, cleaning wipes, safety glasses, insect repellant, sponges, dish soap and more. All items, including the buckets and lids, were donated by Lowe's partners.

The completed buckets will go into storage in Statesville, ready for delivery nationwide during times of immense need. Previous years' buckets aided in relief efforts during Hurricane Florence, which destroyed parts of the North Carolina coast in 2018 and California wild fires. mooresvilletribune.com

Walmart announces executive shuffle to further integrate stores and digital
Walmart is making further organizational changes to further integrate its store and digital operations and leadership, according to a memo obtained by CNBC. The changes bring the U.S. supply chain teams together, led by Greg Smith, current executive vice president of Walmart U.S. supply chain. Smith will jointly report to Greg Foran, who runs Walmart's U.S. stores, and Marc Lore, who runs Walmart's U.S. e-commerce business. cnbc.com

Domino's says Americans With Disabilities Act shouldn't apply online
Domino's, backed by the nation's largest retailers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is making its case before the Supreme Court that protections granted consumers under the Americans With Disabilities Act should not apply equally to online operations. The chain is arguing that the ADA passed in 1990 did not even consider websites in its language and mobile apps didn't even exist. retailwire.com

 

Penney denies report of hiring advisors to restructure debt

All Dressbarn stores will go dark by yearend

Ross Stores Opens 28 New Locations Across in 10 States

South Africa: Shoprite has created its own private security force - after being robbed nearly 500 times last year