System and method to detect scan avoidance behavior

A system to detect scan avoidance behavior, comprising:

• a camera positioned to capture video images of an operational area of a self-service point-of-sale terminal;
• and
• a computer having a processor and memory storing machine-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, control the processor to:
• receive video images from the camera;
• preprocess frames of the video images to suppress background by generating a segmentation mask that restricts information in the frames to foreground pixels corresponding to interaction by a hand of a customer and an item within the operational area;
• process the preprocessed video images to track movement, by a customer operating the self-service point-of-sale terminal, of the item as represented by an item region associated with a hand bounding region across successive frames, from a pickup area of the self-service point-of-sale terminal, through a scan area of a scanner of the self-service point-of-sale terminal, and to a bagging area of the self-service point-of-sale terminal;
• and
• determine scan avoidance when the movement indicates an item drop event in the bagging area for the tracked item region without receiving, from the scanner, a machine-readable code scan event associated with the tracked item region during movement through the scan area.