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Facial Recognition Spreads as Tool to Fight Shoplifting

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Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at the discount retailer QD Stores outside London, was short of breath. He had just chased after three shoplifters who had taken off with several packages of laundry soap. Before the police arrived, he sat at a back-room desk to do something important: Capture the culprits’ faces.On an aging desktop computer, he pulled up security camera footage, pausing to zoom in and save a photo of each thief. He then logged in to a facial recognition program, Facewatch, which his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert.“It’s like having somebody with you saying, ‘That person you bagged last week just came back in,’” Mr. Mackenzie said.Use of facial recognition technology by the police has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. Now, as the technology improves and its cost falls, the systems are reaching further into people’s lives. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being deployed to identify shoplifters, problematic customers and legal adversaries.Facewatch, a British company, is used by retailers across the country frustrated by petty crime. For as little as 250 pounds a month, or roughly $320, Facewatch offers access to a customized watchlist that stores near one another share. When Facewatch spots a flagged face, an alert is sent to a smartphone at the shop, where employees decide whether to keep a close eye on the person or ask the person to leave.Mr. Mackenzie adds one or two new faces every week, he said, mainly people who steal diapers, groceries, pet supplies and other low-cost goods. He said their economic hardship made him sympathetic, but that the number of thefts had gotten so out of hand that facial recognition was needed. Usually at least once a day, Facewatch alerts him that somebody on the watchlist has entered the store.Mr. Mackenzie adds one or two new faces a week to the Facewatch watch list that stores in the area share.Suzie Howell for The New York TimesA sign at a supermarket that uses Facewatch in Bristol, England. Suzie Howell for The New York TimesFacial recognition technology is proliferating as Western countries grapple with advances brought on by artificial intelligence. The European Union is drafting rules that would ban many of facial recognition’s uses, while Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has encouraged retailers to try the technology to fight crime. MSG Entertainment, the owner of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, has used automated facial recognition to refuse entry to lawyers whose firms have sued the company.Among democratic nations, Britain is at the forefront of using live facial recognition, with courts and regulators signing off on its use. The police in London and Cardiff are experimenting with the technology to identify wanted criminals as they walk down the street. In May, it was used to scan the crowds at the coronation of King Charles III.But the use by retailers has drawn criticism as a disproportionate solution for minor crimes. Individuals have little way of knowing they are on the watchlist or how to appeal. In a legal complaint last year, Big Brother Watch, a civil society group, called it “Orwellian in the extreme.”Fraser Sampson, Britain’s biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, who advises the government on policy, said there was “a nervousness and a hesitancy” around facial recognition technology because of privacy concerns and poorly performing algorithms in the past.“But I think in terms of speed, scale, accuracy and cost, facial recognition technology can in some areas, you know, literally be a game changer,” he said. “That means its arrival and deployment is probably inevitable. It’s just a case of when.”‘You can’t expect the police to come’Simon Gordon, the owner of Gordon’s Wine Bar in London, founded Facewatch in 2010. As a business owner, “you’ve got to help yourself,” he said. Suzie Howell for The New York TimesFacewatch was founded in 2010 by Simon Gordon, the owner of a popular 19th-century wine bar in central London known for its cellarlike interior and popularity among pickpockets.At the time, Mr. Gordon hired software developers to create an online tool to share security camera footage with the authorities, hoping it would save the police time filing incident reports and result in more arrests.There was limited interest, but Mr. Gordon’s fascination with security technology was piqued. He followed facial recognition developments and had the idea for a watchlist that retailers could share and contribute to. It was like the photos of shoplifters that stores keep next to the register, but supercharged into a collective database to identify bad guys in real time.By 2018, Mr. Gordon felt the technology was ready for commercial use.“You’ve got to help yourself,” he said in an interview. “You can’t expect the police to come.”Facewatch, which licenses facial recognition software made by Real Networks and Amazon, is now inside nearly 400 stores across Britain. Trained on millions of pictures and videos, the systems read the biometric information of a face as the person walks into a shop and check it against a database of flagged people.Facewatch’s watchlist is constantly growing as stores upload photos of shoplifters and problematic customers. Once added, a person remains there for a year before being deleted.‘Mistakes are rare but do happen’Every time Facewatch’s system identifies a shoplifter, a notification goes to a person who passed a test to be a “super recognizer” — someone with a special talent for remembering faces. Within seconds, the super recognizer must confirm the match against the Facewatch database before an alert is sent.Facewatch is used in about 400 British stores.Suzie Howell for The New York TimesBut while the company has created policies to prevent misidentification and other errors, mistakes happen.In October, a woman buying milk in a supermarket in Bristol, England, was confronted by an employee and ordered to leave. She was told that Facewatch had flagged her as a barred shoplifter.The woman, who asked that her name be withheld because of privacy concerns and whose story was corroborated by materials provided by her lawyer and Facewatch, said there must have been a mistake. When she contacted Facewatch a few days later, the company apologized, saying it was a case of mistaken identity.After the woman threatened legal action, Facewatch dug into its records. It found that the woman had been added to the watchlist because of an incident 10 months earlier involving £20 of merchandise, about $25. The system “worked perfectly,” Facewatch said.But while the technology had correctly identified the woman, it did not leave much room for human discretion. Neither Facewatch nor the store where the incident occurred contacted her to let her know that she was on the watchlist and to ask what had happened.The woman said she did not recall the incident and had never shoplifted. She said she may have walked out after not realizing that her debit card payment failed to go through at a self-checkout kiosk.Madeleine Stone, the legal and policy officer for Big Brother Watch, said Facewatch was “normalizing airport-style security checks for everyday activities like buying a pint of milk.”Mr. Gordon declined to comment on the incident in Bristol.In general, he said, “mistakes are rare but do happen.” He added, “If this occurs, we acknowledge our mistake, apologize, delete any relevant data to prevent reoccurrence and offer proportionate compensation.”Approved by the privacy officeA woman said Facewatch had misidentified her at the Bristol market. Facewatch said the system had ”worked perfectly.”Suzie Howell for The New York TimesCivil liberties groups have raised concerns about Facewatch and suggested that its deployment to prevent petty crime might be illegal under British privacy law, which requires that biometric technologies have a “substantial public interest.”The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office, the privacy regulator, conducted a yearlong investigation into Facewatch. The office concluded in March that Facewatch’s system was permissible under the law, but only after the company made changes to how it operated.Stephen Bonner, the office’s deputy commissioner for regulatory supervision, said in an interview that an investigation had led Facewatch to change its policies: It would put more signage in stores, share among stores only information about serious and violent offenders and send out alerts only about repeat offenders. That means people will not be put on the watchlist after a single minor offense, as happened to the woman in Bristol.“That reduces the amount of personal data that’s held, reduces the chances of individuals being unfairly added to this kind of list and makes it more likely to be accurate,” Mr. Bonner said. The technology, he said, is “not dissimilar to having just very good security guards.”Liam Ardern, the operations manager for Lawrence Hunt, which owns 23 Spar convenience stores that use Facewatch, estimates the technology has saved the company more than £50,000 since 2020.He called the privacy risks of facial recognition overblown. The only example of misidentification that he recalled was when a man was confused for his identical twin, who had shoplifted. Critics overlook that stores like his operate on thin profit margins, he said.“It’s easy for them to say, ‘No, it’s against human rights,’” Mr. Ardern said. If shoplifting isn’t reduced, he said, his shops will have to raise prices or cut staff. More

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    New F.T.C. Majority Gives Lina Khan a Chance to Push an Aggressive Agenda

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    The confirmation of a third Democrat creates an opportunity for Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission’s chair, to advance efforts to rein in corporate power.WASHINGTON — The confirmation of a third Democrat to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday broke a partisan deadlock at the agency. That’s good news for Lina Khan, the agency’s chair and a Democrat.It is also a test.With the F.T.C.’s new Democratic majority — which came with the confirmation of Alvaro Bedoya, who becomes the fifth commissioner, in a slot that had been vacant since October — Ms. Khan’s allies and critics are watching to see if she pushes forward plans to address corporate power. That could include filing an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, setting online privacy rules and tapping little-used agency powers to clip the wings of companies like Meta, Apple and Google.As Congress remains gridlocked and the midterm elections near, agencies like the F.T.C. and the Department of Justice are likely the best remaining hope for activists and policymakers who want the government to restrain corporate power. President Biden, who has promised to crack down, last year ordered the F.T.C. and other federal agencies to take steps to limit concentration.Under Ms. Khan, 33, who became the chair in June, the F.T.C. has already tried tamping down mergers by threatening to challenge deals after they close. The commission has said it will punish companies that make it hard for users to repair their products. And it settled a case with the company once known as Weight Watchers over a diet app that collected data from young children.But Ms. Khan’s new Democratic majority is essential for a broader “realization of her vision,” said William E. Kovacic, a former chair of the F.T.C. “And the clock’s ticking.”In a statement, Ms. Khan said she was “excited” to work with Mr. Bedoya and the other commissioners. She did not address how the F.T.C.’s new majority would affect her plans.The F.T.C.’s previous split between two Republicans and two Democrats led to impasses. In February, the commission couldn’t reach an agreement to move forward with a study of the practices of pharmacy benefit managers.Sarah Miller, the executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, a progressive group that wants more antitrust enforcement, described the F.T.C.’s two Republicans, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, as “libertarian holdouts” who have “kind of thrown the brakes” on Ms. Khan’s ability to advance her agenda.Mr. Phillips said in an email that he supported the commission’s “long tradition of bipartisan work to advance the interests of American consumers.” But he will not support Ms. Khan’s agenda when it “exceeds our legal authority,” raises prices for consumers or harms innovation, he said.Ms. Wilson pointed to three speeches she gave over the last year criticizing Ms. Khan’s philosophy. In one speech last month, Ms. Wilson said Ms. Khan and her allies were drawing on tenets from Marxism.Alvaro Bedoya, a Democrat, was confirmed on Wednesday as the fifth member of the F.T.C.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, said Wednesday’s vote confirming Mr. Bedoya was “pivotal to unshackling the F.T.C.”Now Ms. Khan may gain the ability to pursue a legal case against Amazon. She wrote a student law review article in 2017 criticizing the company’s dominance. The F.T.C. began investigating the retail giant under the Trump administration; some state attorneys general have also conducted inquiries into the company.Ms. Khan could file a lawsuit to challenge Amazon’s recent purchase of the movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. When the $8.5 billion transaction closed in March, an F.T.C. spokeswoman noted that the agency “may challenge a deal at any time if it determines that it violates the law.”Ms. Khan may put her stamp on other deals. The agency is examining Microsoft’s $70 billion purchase of the video game publisher Activision Blizzard and sent a request to the companies this year for additional information.An executive order from Mr. Biden last year encouraging more aggressive antitrust policy pushed the F.T.C. and the Justice Department to update the guidelines they use to approve deals, which could lead to stricter scrutiny. Ms. Khan is likely to need the support of the commission’s two other Democrats, Mr. Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, to approve aggressive new guidelines or to challenge major mergers.Ms. Khan has also said she wants to bulk up the agency’s powers by considering regulations governing privacy and how algorithms make decisions. She has said that the F.T.C. underutilized its role as a rules-making body and that regulations would enhance its mandate to protect consumers.“Given that our economy will only continue to further digitize, marketwide rules could help provide clear notice and render enforcement more impactful and efficient,” she said last month at a privacy conference.The F.T.C. could also act on requests from progressive activist groups that want the agency to ban data-driven advertising business models and forbid noncompete agreements that stop workers from taking a job with a competitor of their current employer.But former F.T.C. officials said Ms. Khan faced challenges, even with the Democratic majority. The creation of privacy regulations could take years, said Daniel Kaufman, a former deputy head of the agency’s consumer protection bureau. Businesses are likely to challenge rules in court that don’t fit into the F.T.C.’s mandate to protect consumers from deceptive and unfair practices.“The F.T.C.’s rule-making abilities are not designed to tackle behavioral advertising so I’ve been telling my clients the agency could kick something off with a lot of press but it’s unclear where it will go,” Mr. Kaufman, a partner at the law firm BakerHostetler, said.Ms. Khan’s efforts are also sure to continue facing opposition from Mr. Phillips and Ms. Wilson. Mr. Phillips has said he has reservations about the agency’s becoming a more muscular regulator. In January, he said Congress, not the F.T.C., should be the one to make new privacy rules.Ms. Wilson recently posted screenshots of an internal survey showing that satisfaction among the F.T.C.’s career staff has fallen. “New leadership has marginalized and disrespected staff, resulting in a brain drain that will take a generation to fix,” she said.To overcome their opposition, Ms. Khan will have to keep her majority intact. That gives leverage to Mr. Bedoya, a privacy expert who has focused on the civil rights dangers of new technologies, and Ms. Slaughter, a former top member of Senator Schumer’s staff.Ms. Slaughter said in a statement that Mr. Bedoya’s privacy expertise would serve the F.T.C. well. She did not comment on the agency’s Democratic majority.Mr. Bedoya was tight-lipped about his own plans, saying only that he was “excited” to work with his new F.T.C. colleagues. More

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    QR Codes Are Here to Stay. So Is the Tracking They Allow.

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    Fueled by a desire for touchless transactions, QR codes popped up everywhere in the pandemic. Businesses don’t want to give them up.SAN FRANCISCO — When people enter Teeth, a bar in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, the bouncer gives them options. They can order food and drinks at the bar, he says, or they can order via a QR code.Each table at Teeth has a card emblazoned with the code, a pixelated black-and-white square. Customers simply scan it with their phone camera to open a website for the online menu. Then they can input their credit card information to pay, all without touching a paper menu or interacting with a server.A scene like this was a rarity 18 months ago, but not anymore. “In 13 years of bar ownership in San Francisco, I’ve never seen a sea change like this that brought the majority of customers into a new behavior so quickly,” said Ben Bleiman, Teeth’s owner.QR codes — essentially a kind of bar code that allows transactions to be touchless — have emerged as a permanent tech fixture from the coronavirus pandemic. Restaurants have adopted them en masse, retailers including CVS and Foot Locker have added them to checkout registers, and marketers have splashed them all over retail packaging, direct mail, billboards and TV advertisements.But the spread of the codes has also let businesses integrate more tools for tracking, targeting and analytics, raising red flags for privacy experts. That’s because QR codes can store digital information such as when, where and how often a scan occurs. They can also open an app or a website that then tracks people’s personal information or requires them to input it.As a result, QR codes have allowed some restaurants to build a database of their customers’ order histories and contact information. At retail chains, people may soon be confronted by personalized offers and incentives marketed within QR code payment systems.“People don’t understand that when you use a QR code, it inserts the entire apparatus of online tracking between you and your meal,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Suddenly your offline activity of sitting down for a meal has become part of the online advertising empire.”“I’ve never seen a sea change like this that brought the majority of customers into a new behavior so quickly,” Ben Bleiman, Teeth’s owner, said of QR codes.Ulysses Ortega for The New York TimesQR codes may be new to many American shoppers, but they have been popular internationally for years. Invented in 1994 to streamline car manufacturing at a Japanese company, QR codes became widely used in China in recent years after being integrated into the AliPay and WeChat Pay digital payment apps.In the United States, the technology was hampered by clumsy marketing, a lack of consumer understanding and the hassle of needing a special app to scan the codes, said Scott Stratten, who wrote the 2013 business book “QR Codes Kill Kittens” with his wife, Alison Stratten.That has changed for two reasons, Mr. Stratten said. In 2017, he said, Apple made it possible for the cameras in iPhones to recognize QR codes, spreading the technology more widely. Then came the “pandemic, and it’s amazing what a pandemic can make us do,” he said.Half of all full-service restaurant operators in the United States have added QR code menus since the start of the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. In May 2020, PayPal introduced QR code payments and has since added them at CVS, Nike, Foot Locker and around one million small businesses. Square, another digital payments firm, rolled out a QR code ordering system for restaurants and retailers in September.Businesses don’t want to give up the benefits that QR codes have brought to their bottom line, said Sharat Potharaju, the chief executive of the digital marketing company MobStac. Deals and special offers can be bundled with QR code systems and are easy to get in front of people when they look at their phones, he said. Businesses also can gather data on consumer spending patterns through QR codes..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“With traditional media, like a billboard or TV, you can estimate how many people may have seen it, but you don’t know how people actually interacted with it,” said Sarah Cucchiara, a senior vice president at BrandMuscle, a marketing firm that introduced a QR code menu product last year. “With QR codes, we can get reporting on those scans.”Tom Sharon, right, and Jamie Sunderland, founders of Cheqout. Mr. Sharon said restaurants that used QR code menus could save 30 percent to 50 percent on labor costs.Ulysses Ortega for The New York TimesCheqout and Mr. Yum, two start-ups that sell technology for creating QR code menus at restaurants, also said the codes had brought advantages to businesses.Restaurants that use QR code menus can save 30 percent to 50 percent on labor costs by reducing or eliminating the need for servers to take orders and collect payments, said Tom Sharon, a co-founder of Cheqout.Digital menus also make it easier to persuade people to spend more with offers to add fries or substitute more expensive spirits in a cocktail, with photographs of menu items to make them more appealing, said Kim Teo, a Mr. Yum co-founder. Orders placed through the QR code menu also let Mr. Yum inform restaurants what items are selling, so they can add a menu section with the most popular items or highlight dishes they want to sell.These increased digital abilities are what worry privacy experts. Mr. Yum, for instance, uses cookies in the digital menu to track a customer’s purchase history and gives restaurants access to that information, tied to the customer’s phone number and credit cards. It is piloting software in Australia so restaurants can offer people a “recommended to you” section based on their previous orders, Ms. Teo said.QR codes “are an important first step toward making your experience in physical space outside of your home feel just like being tracked by Google on your screen,” said Lucy Bernholz, the director of Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab.Ms. Teo said that each restaurant’s customer data was available only to that establishment and that Mr. Yum did not use the information to reach out to customers. It also does not sell the data to any third-party brokers, she said.Cheqout collects only customers’ names, phone numbers and protected payment information, which it does not sell to third parties, Mr. Sharon said.At Teeth, customers can order food and drinks at the counter or via QR code menus. Ulysses Ortega for The New York TimesOn a recent blustery evening at Teeth, customers shared mixed reviews of the QR code ordering system from Cheqout, which the bar had installed in August. Some said it was convenient, but added that they would prefer a traditional menu at a fine dining establishment.“If you’re on a date and you’re whipping your phone out, it’s a distraction,” Daniela Sernich, 29, said.Jonathan Brooner-Contreras, 26, said that QR code ordering was convenient but that he feared the technology would put him out of his job as a bartender at a different bar in the neighborhood.“It’s like if a factory replaced all of its workers with robots,” he said. “People depend on those 40 hours.”Regardless of customers’ feelings, Mr. Bleiman said Cheqout’s data showed that about half of Teeth’s orders — and as much as 65 percent during televised sports games — were coming through the QR code system.“They may not like it,” he said in a text message. “But they’re doing it!” More

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    Health Advocate or Big Brother? Companies Weigh Requiring Vaccines.

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    It is a delicate decision balancing employee health and personal privacy. Some companies are sidestepping the issue by offering incentives to those who get shots.As American companies prepare to bring large numbers of workers back to the office in the coming months, executives are facing one of their most delicate pandemic-related decisions: Should they require employees to be vaccinated?Take the case of United Airlines. In January, the chief executive, Scott Kirby, indicated at a company town hall that he wanted to require all of his roughly 96,000 employees to get coronavirus vaccines once they became widely available.“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Mr. Kirby said, before urging other corporations to follow suit. It has been four months. No major airlines have made a similar pledge — and United Airlines is waffling.“It’s still something we are considering, but no final decisions have been made,” a spokeswoman, Leslie Scott, said.For the country’s largest companies, mandatory vaccinations would protect service workers and lower the anxiety for returning office employees. That includes those who have been vaccinated but may be reluctant to return without knowing whether their colleagues have as well. And there is a public service element: The goal of herd immunity has slipped as the pace of vaccinations has slowed.But making vaccinations mandatory could risk a backlash, and perhaps even litigation, from those who view it as an invasion of privacy and a Big Brother-like move to control the lives of employees.A United Airlines vaccine clinic at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Employers are using on-site vaccinations to encourage workers to get shots.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesIn polls, executives show a willingness to require vaccinations. In a survey of 1,339 employers conducted by Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, 44 percent of U.S. respondents said they planned to mandate vaccinations for their companies. In a separate poll of 446 employers conducted by Willis Towers Watson, a risk-management firm, 23 percent of respondents said they were “planning or considering requiring employees to get vaccinated for them to return to the worksite.”That discrepancy, said Mara Aspinall, who led the Arizona State poll, may have to do with the timing of the surveys and the pace at which executives are growing comfortable with the vaccines. Arizona State conducted its survey in March, while Willis Towers led its survey between Feb. 23 and March 12.Despite what surveys have found, few executives have taken the step of mandating vaccines. It seems that most are hoping that encouragement, whether forceful or subtle, will be enough.“While legally in the United States, employers can mandate vaccines while providing accommodations for religious and for health reasons, socially, in terms of the social acceptability of these decisions, it’s much more tenuous,” said Laura Boudreau, a professor of public policy at Columbia University. “And so the reputational risks to these companies of getting this wrong are really high.”Douglas Brayley, an employment lawyer at the global law firm Ropes & Gray, warns clients of the implications of following through on a mandate, he said.“What if 10 percent of your work force refuses? Are you prepared to lay off that 10 percent?” he said he asked clients. “Or what if it’s someone high-level or in a key role, would you be prepared to impose consequences? And then they sometimes get more nervous.”He added, “Anytime you would have them putting out a mandate, but then carrying through the consequences unevenly, that would create a risk of potentially unlawful unfair treatment.”Companies that require vaccines may also be concerned about any side effects or medical issues that an employee might claim were caused by the vaccine.“They could be held liable for any sort of adverse effects that might happen a year or two down the road,” said Karl Minges, chair of health administration and policy at the University of New Haven.Some companies are sidestepping the problem and trying incentives instead. Amtrak is paying employees two hours’ worth of regular wages per shot upon proof of vaccination. Darden, which owns Olive Garden and other restaurants, told employees it would offer hourly employees two hours of pay for each dose they receive, while emphasizing it would not make doses mandatory. Target is offering a $5 coupon to all customers and employees who receive their vaccination at a CVS at Target location.For restaurants, making vaccinations mandatory could make hiring workers even more difficult.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesIn the United States, there’s nothing new about vaccines being required for participation in public life. The Supreme Court ruled about a century ago that states could require vaccinations for children attending public school. And universities like Rutgers have instituted mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations.But the pandemic brings up a host of complications that companies typically prefer to avoid, involving the private lives, religious preferences and medical histories of employees, such as whether an employee is pregnant, breastfeeding or immuno-compromised, information they may not want to reveal.Major union groups, like the A.F.L.-C.I.O., have not aggressively pushed the issue either. They are facing dueling forces — standing up for individual worker’s rights on the one hand and protecting one another on the other. Unions have also been arguing for stronger workplace safety measures, efforts that could be complicated by companies’ arguing that mandatory vaccinations reduce the need for such accommodations. The return to work protocols negotiated between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and Hollywood’s unions, for instance, will not include mandatory vaccinations.“There are going to be some people who may have legitimate reasons for not getting the vaccine or for not wanting to talk about it,” said Carrie Altieri, who works in communications for IBM’s People and Culture business. “It’s not an easy issue at this point.” IBM is working with New York State on a digital passport linking a person’s vaccination records to an app to show businesses, like performance venues, that may require vaccination. It is not, though, requiring vaccinations for its employees.For some businesses like restaurants, which are already struggling to hire workers, mandating vaccinations could make hiring even more difficult. And there are questions of logistics and execution. How can companies confirm the veracity of those who say they’ve been vaccinated?Companies may need to hire additional staff, potentially with medical training, to handle such tasks, which could saddle businesses — particularly small ones — with burdensome costs.Vivint, a home security company based in Utah with 10,000 employees, began offering vaccines in its on-site clinic this week, after the state approved the company to distribute 100 shots a week to its staff. It paid $3,000 for the necessary medical-grade freezer.“We’re not requiring employees to get vaccinated, but we’re highly encouraging it,” said Starr Fowler, senior vice president for human resources. “For a lot of our employees, particularly those that are younger, the easier that we make it for them, the more likely they’re going to do it.”At Salesforce Tower park in San Francisco, up to 100 fully vaccinated employees can volunteer to work on designated floors.Jason Henry for The New York TimesOthers are experimenting with splitting up their work forces. Salesforce is introducing a policy in certain U.S. offices, including Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, where up to 100 fully vaccinated employees can volunteer to work on designated floors. The New York Stock Exchange issued a memo to trading firms saying they would be allowed to increase their staff on the floor, provided all the employees have been vaccinated.The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance in December stating that employers were indeed legally permitted to require employees to be vaccinated before they return to offices. But the threat of litigation still looms.“To be concerned about the possibility of litigation seems to me to be a perfectly legitimate concern,” said Eric Feldman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He added, “It would seem to me that employers are going to find themselves in a fairly strong position legally — but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to get sued.”Legislation that would limit the ability to require vaccines for students, employees or the public in general has been proposed in at least 25 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some of those restrictions pertain only to vaccines that, like those for Covid-19, have yet to be granted full approval by the Food and Drug Administration. (The coronavirus vaccines have been granted conditional approval for emergency use.)Pfizer is expected to file for full approval of its Covid-19 vaccine soon. Others are expected to follow.Speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference this week, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, mentioned “legal issues about requiring vaccines” when asked about bringing workers back to the office. A press officer for the bank, which plans to open its offices on May 17 on a voluntary basis, said it strongly encouraged vaccines for employees — barring any religious or health restrictions — but would not require them. A spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, which has not guided employees either way, declined to comment.One potential path for companies seeking a middle ground is to mandate the shots only for new hires. Still, there is a fine line between encouraging and requiring shots — sometimes resulting in conflicting messages to employees.The investment bank Jefferies sent a memo to employees in early February stating “verification of vaccination will be required to access the office.” On Feb. 24 came a follow-up memo. “We did not intend to make it sound as if we are mandating vaccines,” it said.Reporting was contributed by More