As covered in The Guardian, a 64-year-old woman has launched a legal complaint against Home Bargains and facial recognition company Facewatch after she was wrongly accused of stealing less than £1’s worth of paracetamol and blacklisted from shops in her area. Privacy rights campaigners Big Brother Watch, who are supporting the woman, have warned of the “devastating consequences” of facial recognition technology.
Anna* was shopping in Home Bargains with her daughter Ria* when she was falsely accused of stealing paracetamol worth 39 pence and added to a facial recognition blacklist. She was publicly accused by staff of theft, had her bag searched, and her own personal paracetamol was confiscated. Facewatch, the providers of Home Bargains’ facial recognition technology, then attached Anna’s biometric profile to an alert accusing her of theft without conducting any independent verification of Home Bargains’ claims.
Anna has made a legal complaint to the data protection regulator with the support of Big Brother Watch against both Home Bargains and Facewatch, and is being represented by data rights firm AWO. Big Brother Watch has warned that the technology is having a “profound and damaging impact […] on the the public’s rights” and that Anna is one of many people “caught up in a confusing net of privatised surveillance” as a result of retailers’ use of live facial recognition.
Ria said her mother is now “scared to go shopping alone” and is “constantly worried” about being subject to further accusation. Her anxiety and trauma surrounding the incident have prompted her to receive counselling.
Facial recognition technology allows shop security workers to covertly take images from CCTV feeds of people they suspect of wrongdoing and add them to facial recognition blacklists, causing an automated alert to staff if a so-called “subject of interest” enters the store. These individuals are blacklisted across all shops using Facewatch’s technology in the area.
Home Bargains and Facewatch have previously been subject to a legal complaint after a teenage girl was misidentified by facial recognition in Manchester, searched, removed from the store, and told she was barred from a number of shops across the UK.
The Information Commissioner also found in 2023 that Facewatch had breached data protection laws on 8 different counts. However, the then-Policing Minister Chris Philp, who had private meetings with the firm whilst it was under investigation, “lobbied” regulators to act “favourably” towards the company and vowed he would “do everything possible to promote [its] widespread use” at the time.
Home Bargains as well as a number of other shops including Southern Co-op supermarkets, Flannels, and Sports Direct have installed live facial recognition cameras in stores across the country. A recent trial of the technology by Asda sparked fierce backlash from customers.
COMMENTS
Madeleine Stone, Senior Advocacy Officer at Big Brother Watch, said:
“Home Bargains and Facewatch are adding customers to secret watchlists with no due process, meaning innocent people like Anna* are being falsely accused, grossly mistreated and blacklisted from shops.
Anna’s story is clear evidence of the profound and damaging impact facial recognition is having on the public’s rights. This technology turns shoppers into walking barcodes and makes us a nation of suspects, with devastating consequences for people’s lives when it inevitably makes mistakes. We are regularly hearing from and supporting distressed people who have been caught up in a confusing net of privatised surveillance, despite being entirely innocent.
Deploying airport-style security checks in order to buy a pint of milk is hugely disproportionate and is leading to injustices with no clear remedy for those wrongly labelled as criminals by AI. The Government must urgently step in and stop retailers from subjecting shoppers to this Orwellian and discriminatory technology.”
Ria*, Anna’s daughter, said:
“Home Bargains’ use of facial recognition has had a serious and long lasting impact on my mum, leaving her scared to go shopping alone and tearful even remembering what she went through. Not only has it impacted her shopping, but her social life as well. She is constantly worried about being recorded and recognised everywhere she goes and is even having counselling to deal with the anxiety this has caused. My mum would never steal, but has now been made to feel like a criminal because of facial recognition technology. We hope this legal action will make other people aware of how dangerous this technology is and stop shops from using it.”
Alex Lawrence-Archer, Solicitor at data rights firm AWO, said:
“This complaint again highlights significant concerns with how Facewatch’s technology is impacting ordinary people in high street stores like Home Bargains. When the regulator investigated Facewatch previously, the company was told only to use its technology to catch serious or repeat offenders. This case shows that people can be added to the biometric watchlist for the most minor suspected offence, without being properly informed, and without having the chance to tell their side of the story. The ICO should urgently investigate whether Facewatch and its clients are complying with the directions it gave after its investigation in 2023.”
*The woman and her daughter have chosen not to be named to protect their anonymity. We have used pseudonyms.