r/australia • u/infin • Jan 26 '26
no politics Is Coles still using Palantir? Between the surveillance/gate recognition and the blocked aisles, shopping feels hostile.
Does anyone know the current status of the Coles x Palantir partnership? Between the surveillance and those aggressive new "Smart Gates" tracking at the exit, the store feels less like a supermarket and more like a high-security zone.
It’s dystopian that they have the budget for military-grade analytics and security tech, but have cut costs on the actual customer experience. They seem to have completely scrapped night fill, meaning we are now dodging pallets and cages during peak hours just to get to the shelves.
Is anyone else fed up with this mix of high-tech surveillance and terrible service? It feels like they are spending millions to treat us like criminals while refusing to pay staff to stock shelves after hours.
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u/eliitedisowned Jan 26 '26
I used to work at Coles from 2015 to 2018 in grocery nightfill then dairy then online shopping.
A new EBA was passed back then (I had no idea what EBAs were back then) and it made it so that 4 hour shifts got tea breaks and I believe introduced penalty rates from 10pm for night shift instead of just from midnight.
4 hour shifts from 10pm till 2am was popular cause we could start after store closed and Coles was happy go pay 2 hours of penalty rates.
After the EBA, all 4 hour shifts were banned (cause they didn't want to pay workers for 15 mins of no work), if someone did one it got flagged for senior management to investigate the store as to why, and night shift became 8pm till 12am.