The cameras that are certainly watching you at checkout are the same ones you know or should know are watching you in every retail establishment in the country. The ones overhead. Retailers use a relatively small number of cameras mounted overhead in order to have broad coverage of a large area that is hard to obscure.

I do not know for absolute certain, and couldn't divulge it if I did, but I am about 99% sure that the cameras mounted in the all in one systems are part of the standard equipment included with that model of computer NOT part of store surveillance coverage which is more than adequately served by existing cameras. That is to say that it would be a waste of resources to watch the other cameras watch you.

The key is that they include user facing sliding camera covers designed for users to secure their privacy. This wouldn't be true if they were intended to watch you.

The reason you are being watched is that people steal and people steal MORE when dealing with a machine because they feel less guilty about doing it perceptibly to a machine rather than cheating in front of an actual cashier.

The Atlantic did a piece on it where it was found that around 1 in 5 people stole from SCO and about 4% of merchandise that went through SCO wasn't paid for.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/stealin...