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Sainsbury’s suspends live facial recognition at a London store
The move follows a customer being wrongly challenged as a shoplifter, and Sainsbury’s previously attributed similar Facewatch errors to “human error.”
Sainsbury’s has suspended its use of live facial recognition technology at one London branch after a shopper said he was wrongly flagged and told to leave the store, BBC Business reported. Matt Arnold, 46, was buying items at the East Dulwich location when management approached him at a self-service till. He said he had scanned his purchases and used his Nectar loyalty card, then was told he could not be served due to an incident described as happening earlier in the week. Arnold said staff told him the cameras had identified him through AI alerts, and that he later saw an overhead CCTV monitor showing a red circle around his face. He criticized the approach as humiliating for customers and potentially pushing staff to act on automated alerts without judgment. Sainsbury’s said it had apologized to Arnold and blamed the mistake on “human error,” not a software failure. The supermarket noted the incident was not the first time its facial recognition system, supplied by Facewatch, led to an innocent shopper being challenged, including a separate case in September involving another customer in Elephant and Castle.