US Markets
Home›US Markets›Sectors›Sainsbury's suspends live facial recognition after cus…
Sainsbury's suspends live facial recognition after customer is wrongly flagged
The supermarket said it apologized to the customer and blamed “human error,” but critics are urging the technology to be scrapped after similar misidentifications tied to Facewatch.
Sainsbury's has suspended its use of live facial recognition technology at one London branch after a shopper was wrongly challenged and asked to leave. According to BBC Business, the incident involved Matt Arnold at the East Dulwich store on 6 August, when management stopped him at a self-service till.
Arnold said he had already scanned his items and used his Nectar loyalty card, and he was then told he could not be served due to an earlier incident. He described being told that he was identified by AI from cameras that flagged him, and he said an overhead CCTV monitor showed an alert with a red circle around his face as he was escorted out.
The retailer apologized to Arnold and said the mistake was caused by “human error,” not a software failure. BBC Business reports that Sainsbury's also noted Arnold was waiting for staff approval for an alcohol purchase when the management intervention occurred.
The broadcaster said this is not the first time Sainsbury's facial recognition system, supplied by Facewatch, has led to an innocent person being challenged. In September, Warren Rajah was ordered out of a store in Elephant and Castle after being wrongly flagged, and Facewatch later confirmed he was not even on its system, with Sainsbury's and Facewatch again attributing the event to human error.