What is Auror?

Auror was founded in New Zealand in 2012 after its founders saw a growing retail crime problem, with no effective or secure technology being used to address it. Retailers are now empowered with the tools to better understand their own information and connect with police to identify prolific and repeat offenders causing the most harm in the community.

Auror (pronounced 'or-ra') is the shortening of the Latin word 'Aurora' which translates to dawn or sunrise. Its meaning underpins what we strive to do, which is to help shed light on the scale of retail crime through information and collaboration.

Retailers enter potential crime and anti-social behavior information into Auror after it has happened. This is a manual process where a retailer fills in an online form and enters relevant supporting material like a witness statement, images or CCTV footage.

The structured online form is designed to help retailers enter information that is relevant, accurate, and helpful to potential investigations. Free-text fields are limited and do not allow the capturing of sensitive information such as ethnicity, religious or political affiliation, or sexual orientation. 

Retailers may choose to label events as sensitive to apply access restrictions. For example, if the event relates to a minor.

No. Auror does not own or operate cameras or hardware. Simply, retailers use CCTV footage or images taken with their own cameras and upload it to Auror.

LPR systems (also known as ANPR) are software that run on cameras and are a well-established technology to detect license plates.

Retailers can opt to integrate their LPR systems with Auror’s software, which provides retailers alerts on vehicles known to be associated with previous events - whether violent or repeat retail crime - when entering their private parking lots. This gives them time to respond appropriately and helps keep staff, customers, and property safe.

This means that retailers are only notified of vehicles associated with patterns of suspected criminal activity, and those retailers determine the rules around when they get alerted.

Retailers can also use this to fulfill requests for information made by police about vehicles involved in police investigations.

Retailers can opt in to a module called Connect the Dots (CTD). Image matching is an opt-in component of CTD and is not enabled by default.

Through the CTD feature, historic and static images entered into Auror by retailers and relating to potential crime events can be used to suggest matches between events to identify individuals who may have repeatedly offended. The CTD feature is also able to suggest matches using other text-based event data entered into Auror.

As with all elements in Auror that use technology like this, human verification is required to accept or reject suggestions. This is not the same as live facial recognition because all matches occur only after event data has been manually entered in Auror.

Retailers can generally set their own retention periods. Auror has an information retention policy which ensures information is not retained for longer than required.

Information may sometimes be anonymized and aggregated for statistical or reporting purposes so it is no longer personal information.

Yes. We take privacy and information security very seriously and we take steps to keep information secure. Auror is SOC2 Type Two compliant. All information is end-to-end encrypted and stored securely in Microsoft Azure data centers, hosted in local regions.

Retailers and law enforcement have layered access control settings to ensure access reflects the responsibilities users have within their organizations. At the enterprise level, access to the software is managed by single-sign-on (SSO) accounts and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Retailers determine what information they enter into the software. Auror provides them with the ability to set access controls internally, and also to self-remediate or delete any information they enter. We also provide audit information where needed so retailers can see who has used, entered, accessed or downloaded information.

Information is processed under strict safeguards and all users must comply with their own internal operating policies and our terms of use, which requires them to not misuse or share information outside the software with unauthorized users. Retailers also need to comply with all local laws.

When users violate our strict terms of use, we work with the relevant organizations to suspend or terminate user access.

Yes. Auror’s software is auditable and there are layered access controls in place for customers to ensure only the people who need access in their organization have access to the right level. We provide audit information so retailers can see who has used, entered, accessed or downloaded information. Access to the software is generally managed by single-sign-on (SSO) accounts with multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Yes, you can request it from the holder and collector of that information, which is the retailer. It's important to know that Auror is a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider to retailers and therefore, retailers determine what information they enter and remain in control of their own data. Auror acts as their agent under their instruction, so we cannot release information directly. We provide retailers with the tools to audit, search, download information.

The best approach is to connect with the retailer and request your information. They’ll then process that request and determine how to respond. They may require more information, such as your full name, date of birth and the time and location of the event. If necessary, you may contact privacy@auror.co for more information about this process.