RILA Announces TRL 2.0 Findings at Last Week's AP Leaders Council Meeting
At last week's AP Leaders Council meeting, RILA announced the findings of their newly released report, "Total Retail Loss 2.0: From Theory to Practice." The report analyzes the global retail industry's adoption of Total Retail Loss (TRL), a concept first introduced by RILA and University of Leicester Emeritus Professor Adrian Beck in 2016.

The research found that 89% of retailers surveyed were aware of TRL and 64% of those believed TRL had some impact in their organizations. It also showed that 53% of respondents had either fully embraced the concept or adopted some of its elements and 47% were thinking about using it in the next year

"Our goal when we teamed up with Professor Beck was to establish a more uniform approach to measuring loss across the industry in hopes of mitigating challenges retailers face managing loss," said Lisa LaBruno, RILA executive vice president of retail operations and innovation. "Fast forward three years, TRL has gained significant traction globally and retailers are finding great value in this approach. It's exciting to see the industry leveraging this work and we're optimistic that TRL adoption will continue to expand."

Click here to access the full report

COMING NEXT MONTH
RILA Webinar: Total Retail Loss 2.0: From Theory to Practice
Join RILA on November 18 to hear the latest on Total Retail Loss. Total Retail Loss 2.0 builds on the groundbreaking research commissioned three years ago by the RILA Asset Protection Leaders Council in partnership with Professor Adrian Beck.

Join Emeritus Professor Adrian Beck on November 18 from 12-1pm EST to hear the report’s full findings, how your organization can leverage the loss typology and how industry adoption can transform how retail asset protection benchmarks losses.

Click here to register

'Bias' in face recognition: some facts.
Face recognition is highly accurate for women of color
Errors depend on the use-case & performance depends on image capture

Written by: Yevgeniy Sirotin, PhD, Senior Principal Scientist / Manager at SAIC

There is increasing public attention regarding the potential negative impacts of face recognition technology. Current issues with face recognition include concerns regarding how well the technology works for different demographic groups. As part of our work testing biometric technologies for the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), our research group has investigated this topic. We do find face recognition technology has performance gaps, however, many current media narratives have misleading undertones.

There are benefits and risks associated with any new technology. It is important to outline what these risks are, so that they can be assessed and mitigated. This article presents current narratives about bias in face recognition and provides facts, from our group’s work and from the work of others, that contextualize and help inform how to discuss these issues with the public. Specifically, this article will provide facts supporting the following statements:

- Face recognition makes errors.
- Face recognition is highly accurate for women of color.
- Face recognition performance depends on image capture.
- Face recognition errors affect all demographic groups.

Read Full LinkedIn Blog Here

SIA: Face Facts: Dispelling Common Myths Associated With Facial Recognition Technology
For many years, use of advanced facial recognition technology has benefited Americans in countless but underpublicized ways – helping to find missing children, fight human trafficking, secure the border, find dangerous criminals, bring sexual predators to justice and thwart identity thieves. Rapid growth, particularly for commercial uses, has prompted important discussions related to data privacy and increasing transparency and accountability measures; however, recent calls for complete bans on facial recognition technology (such as recently in San Francisco) are based on a misleading picture of how the technology works and its real-world uses. Americans deserve to know the facts. Some of the common myths are addressed below.

● What Is Happening?
● How Does the Technology Work?
● Why Is There Confusion About Facial Recognition?
● Government and Law Enforcement Use
● Myths vs. Facts
● Reasonable (and Unreasonable) Safeguards
● Examples of Facial Recognition Technology Uses

Continuous Evaluation Is the Key to Preventing Workplace Violence
Modern technology can help, using continuous evaluation to go beyond the pre-hire background check and make leaders aware of behaviors that are cause for concern.

Permission for continuous evaluation can be incorporated into the employee onboarding process to enable ongoing checks for risky activities that employees may be engaging in outside of work. This comes in handy in situations where an employee is arrested for a misdemeanor or minor felony that employers won’t be alerted to unless an employee tells them.

In multiple instances, domestic violence has been a precursor to more aggressive, tragic, public attacks.

There are other warning signs, too, some of which can only come from the observations of others. That’s why some continuous evaluation platforms allow for individuals to – with or without anonymity – report suspicious activities they see or hear about at work, like someone being verbally or physically abusive to a coworker or client. These contributions create a more holistic view of an employee’s behavior and help leaders better determine whether someone poses a serious threat to the business and the individuals it serves.

In certain cases (e.g., serious crime), termination may be the only appropriate outcome. That’s why the best continuous evaluation platforms integrate leadership across Human Resources and Legal.

But in instances where discovery occurs early, actions can be taken to course correct behavior– as would be the case if an employee with no related criminal history starts to randomly act out. This is where leaders can encourage HR to step in, having them engage that employee and initiate a conversation about what has prompted their change in behavior. If applicable, they can also make suggestions regarding how to improve it. securitymagazine.com

California Fires: Thousands Flee Blaze in Los Angeles
One-Day Window of Quieter Weather Coming Wed. in Northern Calif.

Utility companies prepare for another week of mandatory blackouts; PG&E says its power lines may have caused small fires over the weekend.

Thousands of Los Angeles residents evacuated their homes as a fast-moving blaze spread, and utility companies prepared for another week of mandatory blackouts.

PG&E Corp., the state’s main utility company, said its power lines may have caused two small fires in the north of the state over the weekend—even as it shut off power to almost a million customers to try to prevent such events.

Emergency officials anticipate it will take multiple days to contain the blaze, dubbed the Getty fire because of it's being in the Getty Museum area.

The Northern Calif. fire threatens 79,400 structures and is nearly out-of-control.

Wind-driven wildfires and mandatory blackouts have become a new normal for Californians.

More than 15,800 customers were without power across Southern California Monday morning, with most outages hitting Ventura and Los Angeles counties, according to Southern California Edison. More than 350,000 other customers across the region may also be affected by mandatory blackouts.

The Getty Fire sparked days after another fire just north in Santa Clarita Valley destroyed 29 structures and damaged 44 others. The Tick Fire had burned 4,615 acres and was 78% contained by Monday, according to Cal Fire. wsj.com

Calif. Gov. Declares Statewide Emergency as Fires Rage On
Kincade Fire Forces Evacuation - Largest Ever in Sonoma
The Kincade Fire had already burned more than 54,000 acres — roughly twice the size of San Francisco — as of Sunday night, according to Cal Fire, which said just the fire is just 5 percent contained.

Powerful weekend wind gusts frustrated efforts to beat back the massive Kincade Fire that’s cutting a destructive path through Northern California’s wine country and has prompted evacuations of nearly 200,000 people as the wildfire marches southwest toward the county’s population hub of Santa Rosa.

All 40 of Sonoma County’s public schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday, affecting more than 70,400 students and all public meetings in the county were cancelled for the week. Meanwhile, 1.3 million Californians in the Bay Area are without power as state utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric implemented a historically large blackout to mitigate the risk of additional fires as high winds whip around the tinder-dry region.

In the San Francisco Bay region — particularly the North Bay, which includes Sonoma County — a relentless 36-hour period of howling, desiccating winds will come to a temporary end on Monday by 11 a.m. local time. “Red flag” warnings are in place until that time for most of the Bay Area, for “critical” fire weather that could allow wildfires to spread rapidly and exhibit extreme behavior that would make them hard to control.

The National Weather Service is forecasting another around of “strong, gusty, and dry offshore winds” beginning midday Tuesday and lasting into Wednesday morning, and it’s likely that the red flag warnings will be hoisted yet again by Monday afternoon. washingtonpost.com

Retailers Impacted By Power Outages/Fires in Northern & Southern Calif.
PG&E Shut Off Impacted Over 2.3M in 38 Counties Customers & Businesses
An estimated 2.35 million people in 38 counties began losing power Saturday evening as fires burned in Northern and Southern California.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company began shutting off electricity Saturday at 5 p.m. local time for 940,000 homes and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area, wine country to the north and the Sierra foothills.

The Kincade fire in Sonoma County had burned 26,000 acres and was around 11% contained as of Sunday morning. About 180,000 residents were ordered to evacuate near the Kincade blaze.

Meanwhile, the Tick fire in northern Los Angeles County had burned 4,600 acres and was 55% contained as of Sunday. Nearly all the 50,000 residents ordered to evacuate last week were allowed back home.

The shutoffs were expected to continue until at least Monday, when forecasters expect high winds to die down and PG&E inspectors examine power lines to look for damage.

Popular downtown boutiques and farm-to-table restaurants were deserted in Healdsburg, Calif., by Saturday afternoon. Traffic ground to a halt in downtown Windsor, where lines for gas stations spilled into gridlocked roadways. The county fairgrounds in Santa Rosa once again morphed into a disaster base camp.

“The next 72 hours are going to be challenging,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. “I could sugarcoat it but I’m not. We’re in an anticipatory stage that is rather anxiety inducing.”

Emergency responders warned residents of Marin County — which includes Sausalito, San Rafael, Tiburon and Novato — that power restoration could take up to five days. foxnews.com nytimes.com

Home Depot Manager Saves Lives
Employees Escape Just Before Tornado Destroys Store
Home Depot employees who lost their store on Forest Lane when a tornado hit Sunday were out helping others this week. The store’s staff of 160 had a lot to be thankful for. Assistant store manager Jordan Jasper decided to send employees home early Sunday night, probably saving their lives. A tornado ripped through the roof and left the store a total loss.

It wasn’t closing time, and there were a few customers still in the store. Jasper and eight other workers spread through the aisles to help them finish their shopping. After everyone was out, Jasper says he remembers that when he set the store alarm, the clock read 8:42 p.m. His employees made it home safely, because he made the call get everyone out before the storm hit. Had he not, they'd have been at the mercy of a completely collapsed roof.

Jasper was among the wave of orange shirts that descended on the neighborhoods along Marsh Lane and Walnut Hill on Thursday. About 300 employees from the damaged Dallas store, surrounding stores and the district office volunteered to clean up debris and trees along streets and in yards. dallasnews.com nbcdw.com

Home Delivery's Spiraling Rise Impacting Cities Worldwide
1.5 Million NYC Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets
The push for convenience is having a stark impact on gridlock, roadway safety and pollution in New York City and urban areas around the world. “It is impossible to triple the amount, without paying consequences.”

And it could be just the beginning. Just 10 percent of all retail transactions in the United States during the first quarter of 2019 were made online, up from 4 percent a decade ago. The trade-offs created by the internet economy. “We’re still adapting to it. It’s going to be a painful adaptation, but we have no choice.”

“We need to completely rethink how we use our streets if we want to maintain our current shopping and delivery habits.” nytimes.com

Walmart Pays $90k Salary's to it's 9,000 Truck Drivers - Double National Median of $42k

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

New Start-Up Program: Director of Security for Liberty Compassion
Medical & Upcoming Adult-Use Cannabis Co. in Clinton MA
Liberty Compassion is an early stage cannabis company, anticipating both Medical and Adult Use offerings. We are looking for a Director of Security to oversee all security personnel and activity in our production facility in Clinton MA and our retail dispensaries distributed across MA.

If you have a background in law enforcement or security and would like to join a new team driven to build a cannabis company focused on premium quality, science / technology, and customer service, then we should talk!

Cannabis Industry Senior Jobs Interesting Footnotes:
Virtually all postings list military, law enforcement, and security backgrounds being preferred.

And in two cases the Director LP & Security positions posted, one on Indeed and one on LinkedIn, were taken down after only 1 or 2 days because of the strong response rate, which we've seen in a number of cases.

IT Security & LP/Security Industry's Interesting Footnote:
The financial & healthcare industries are heavily recruiting for Senior LP/Security & IT Security positions
With dozens of CSO's, CISO's, VP LP/AP, VP Risk & LP, and VP's of Security positions around the country. A fact we've noticed slowing growing for quite some time, but now seems to have reached a feverish pitch. From JP Mogan Chase, Moody's, AEG, BNY Mellon, CIT Group, to John Hopkins and even The Mayo Clinic. Which also includes two consulting/accounting firms Accenture and PWC. To name just a few.
 

Week 43: US retailers announced 8,993 store closures & 3,780 store openings vs '18's 5,844 & 3,258

Wages & Perks Higher But Holiday Jobs Similar or Fewer This Year

Apple Pay Overtakes Starbucks as Top Mobile Payment App in the US

LVMH Explores Potential Takeover of Tiffany in US Luxury Push

The Kitchen Collection to Close All 160 Stores

Quarterly Results
Walgreens Q4 USA comp's up 3.4%, sales up 2.1%, total sales up 1.5%


Last week's #1 article --

13 Terrifying Installations That Will Keep You Up at Night
Reachable cameras. Taped sensors. Have you ever looked at an installation job and thought, “What was that person thinking?” Prepare to ask yourself that 13 times.

Security Sales & Integration compiled 13 of the worst installations in a picture slideshow here.

Not sure if the wrong sign or an extinguisher disguised as a fire alarm.	Who needs mounting hardware when you have zip-ties?	Good luck trying to get anywhere near those racks.

What Security Issues Will Enterprises Face in the Next 12 Months?
86% Proactively Amplified Security Initiatives Over Last Year to Combat Increase in Attacks
The KnowBe4 2019 Security Threats and Trends report asked survey respondents what issues their enterprises would face over the next year or posed the greatest threats to their firm's security. Their responses included:

● Email/phishing scams - 96%
● End user carelessness - 76%
● Social engineering - 70%
● Targeted hacker attacks - 46%
● BYOD/mobile devices - 35%
● Password attacks -32%
● Data leaks - 31%
● Regulatory - 28%
● Lost, stolen devices -23%
● Network edge attacks - 23%
● Misconfiguration errors - 21%
● Back door open - 19%
● Combination of issues - 14%
● Denial of service - 14%
● Insider attacks - 11%
● Physical attack - 9%
● Corporate Espionage - 5%
● Eavesdropping - 5%

Additional findings include:

● Nearly nine out of 10 businesses – 89 percent – say they’re currently better equipped to deal with security threats than they were in 2018.

● Three quarters or 76 percent of organizations say the biggest and most persistent security threat comes from “the enemy from within” – careless end users – who regularly clicks on bad links, placing organizations at higher risk of falling victim to email phishing, ransomware, CEO fraud scams and various forms of malware.

● 58 percent of organizations cite budgetary constraints as an ongoing challenge in upgrading security.

● 43 percent of survey participants still don’t allocate a significant portion of their IT budgets towards security expenditures. One-third of respondents don’t have a separate security budget and another 13 percent say the organization’s security budget is less than $25,000 annually.

● Only 14 percent of organizations say they’re concerned about insider attacks from existing employees.

● Half of participating companies report their security and IT staff are overworked and 40 percent say their organizations will face a shortage of skilled security professionals within the next 12 months.

“The threats aren’t going away any time soon – the bad guys are just getting more and more clever. That’s why it’s so important to build up your human firewall – your end users – to better protect your organization.” securitymagazine.com

Building a Cybersecurity Culture: What's Love Got to Do With It?
Fredrick "Flee" Lee is CISO at Gusto, a cloud-based payroll, benefits, and human resource management software provider. Along with his fun-sounding nickname, he has a playful view on how to get organization-wide buy in on security: Get people to fall in love with the security team.

"The key to building and instilling a security culture within an organization is to make security lovable," Lee says. "Security can't hide behind their hoodies, so to speak. Security should be the most approachable team in the room so that other teams within the organization want to actively engage with [them], instead of skirting around [them]."

Security is serious, Lee explains, but you want your security team to be approachable — to be seen as the helpers, he says. Nail that and suddenly security isn't seen as a roadblock or barrier; it's the team who's going to go out and find solutions to securely enable products and features that weren't possible in the past.

At Gusto Lee says he accomplishes this by conducting security team-building and offsite activities with colleagues from other teams, and by having an open-door policy and office hours so anyone, from any division, can feel welcome to approach with questions. He also offers lab-based training for developers.

At Gusto, we've implemented lab-based training with an emphasis on collaboration. Our security pros don't go up to a whiteboard and dictate what to do to developers as a lecture. Instead, we create learning modules that enable developers to think like hackers. We let them wear the hoodie, so to speak. That way we create champions and evangelists who get their teams excited about security."

Speak Softly – and Lose the Big Stick
Indeed, the soft skills of communication are essential to building security culture, says Geoff Belknap, CISO at LinkedIn. But while the security team doesn't want to instill fear and scare people into secure behavior — that isn't effective, Gusto's Lee says — it is still essential to be honest and frank about what's at stake when it comes to risk mitigation.

Historically, security teams have taken on the 'policing' role in an organization — enforcing security practices and emphasizing the negative consequences of mistakes," Belknap says. "The problem with this mindset is that it creates an adversarial dynamic of ‘us versus them,' when in reality, security affects the entire organization and should be everyone's responsibility. darkreading.com

Wi-Fi Analytics Drive Customer Engagement, Revenue Generation & Customer Profiles
In retail, this analytics-powered metric is used to improve the customer experience by cutting shopper wait times by shortening checkout lines and queues.

Retailers use an important measure, called footfall analysis, to measure how long it takes for customers to move from one point to another. In retail, this analytics-powered metric is used to improve the customer experience by cutting shopper wait times by shortening checkout lines and queues.

Using the resulting expanded profiles, combined with foot patterns, time spent at different spots in a store, and the frequency of visits, retailers can leverage Wi-Fi analytics tools to optimize merchandise placement, store layout, staffing allocation, or business hours. Further, retailers can discover and create best practices for use in other stores. networkcomputing.com

LP's role and benefits are obvious and have to be integrated in the design and various app's roll-outs.

P&G Online Beauty Store Hacked to Steal Payment Info
 

Educating the LP Leaders of Tomorrow

Introduction with Gus Downing,
Publisher & Editor, D&D Daily

Filmed LIVE in NYC at Lord & Taylor's historic flagship store on Fifth Avenue during the 2018 NRF Big Show, where over 35,000 retail executives converge to hear visionary leaders and game-changing ideas that help them elevate their perspective of the industry and their business. It's with this same vision that we at the D&D Daily established this only-one-of-its-kind Live LP Digital Conference.

We'll be speaking with a host of LP/AP and Solution Provider Leaders about the hot topics, the ongoing issues, the programs and the solutions these providers offer to the industry.

These sessions are all about bringing the industry leaders to you LIVE on-demand so you can increase your knowledge, broaden your vision, and help deliver better results. Stay tuned!

Episode Sponsored By

 

Elizabethtown, KY: Dozens arrested in 2-day Elizabethtown retail crime blitz
The Elizabethtown Police Department partnered with the Kentucky Organized Retail Crime Association and 12 local businesses to engage in a retail crime enforcement blitz over two days last week. As the city has grown, it has seen an increase in drug-related problems and an increase in local property crime, according to Elizabethhtown PD public affairs officer John Thomas. Thomas said the goal of the partnership was to proactively combat rising retail theft in Elizabethtown. The retail blitz took place on Wednesday and Thursday. Officials said 10 officers and two patrol sergeants partnered with loss prevention personnel from 12 businesses to intercept 31 suspected shoplifters.

Those stores include, Kroger, Kohl's, Walmart, Target, Lowe's, TJMaxx, JCPenney, Academy Sports, Old Navy, Shoe Carnival, Newcomb Oil and Belk. It resulted in 22 arrests, six citations, two trespass notices and 1 pending warrant. Officials said they recovered $1,967.83 in stolen merchandise. Items included food, clothes and baby formula. Officials said among those that were apprehended were three juveniles. "We want thieves who are targeting our area to understand we are not sitting idly by. We are taking this type of crime very seriously," Thomas said. "We are not going to take this type of crime in our town." wlky.com

Queensbury, NY: 4 Arrested in $3,000 Victoria’s Secret theft
Four Albany residents were arrested Friday after they were caught with thousands of dollars worth of lingerie and underwear that had been stolen from a local store, a shoplifting case that police are concerned will be more prevalent as state law changes. The group stole more than $3,000 worth of merchandise from the Victoria's Secret store in Aviation Mall on Friday afternoon, and State Police located the vehicle they drove as it left the mall parking lot moments later, authorities said. All four were charged with felony counts of criminal possession of stolen property and misdemeanor conspiracy, and police said they believe they will see more shoplifting going forward as state bail laws change.

The outlet centers in Queensbury have long been targets of organized shoplifting rings from the Albany and New York City areas. One of the deterrents over the years has been the fact that local judges would set bail on those who were arrested, but come Jan. 1 many of the shoplifting-related charges that will be filed will not be eligible for bail. So that means felony level cases where suspects are charged with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and even burglary — filed when a person ignores a ban imposed at a store for prior shoplifting — will typically result in immediate release without arraignment. poststar.com


Tukwila, WA: Police seeking public’s help identifying Target robbery suspect
The Tukwila Police Department is seeking the public’s help identifying a suspect wanted in connection in a robbery that occurred on Oct. 24 around 6:35 p.m. at Target.

Police say that when the suspect was approached by loss prevention due to having shoplifted, he pepper sprayed them and fled in the pictured (very recognizable) mid-1990s Subaru Impreza wagon getaway car. tukwilablog.com

Chicago, IL: Robbers armed with pepper spray hit Gold Coast, South Loop stores
Police are warning business owners of a pair of robberies reported Thursday in the Gold Coast and South Loop. In both cases, the suspects entered the store, stuffed sales items in a bag and then attempted to walk out, Chicago police said in a community alert. The suspects discharged pepper spray in the direction of store security when confronted. A robbery happened about 3 p.m. in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue, police said. Another occurred about 7:15 p.m. in the 1100 block of South Delano Court. One of the suspects is described as a female between 16 and 20 years old, standing 5-foot-6 and weighing 130-145 pounds, police said. She had dreadlocks and was wearing a mustard jacket. The other suspects are described as two 20 to 30-year-old women, police said. chicago.suntimes.com

Sulphur Springs, TX: Two women arrested for $750 theft from Walmart

Guam: Man allegedly attempts to walk out with $1,100 of goods from Pay-Less without paying