Retail crime intelligence platform Auror has launched its new facial recognition system, Auror Subject Recognition, which is now live in UK stores, with real-time alerts to prevent known high-harm offenders from further acts of violence and robbery.
Auror Subject Recognition takes a unique approach to the use of live facial recognition technology (FRT) in retail by leveraging a retailer’s own existing crime information held within the Auror platform and integrating with world-class FRT providers. It then wraps around the right data governance and safeguards to ensure retailers not only prevent crime in their stores, but also meet their compliance obligations.
“We strongly believe live FRT will have a meaningful impact on store safety in the face of high levels of violent and threatening retail crime, but we know it's critical to get this right for both retailers and the privacy of good, honest shoppers,” said Auror’s Global Vice President of Trust and Safety, Nick McDonnell.
“With Subject Recognition, we’re not talking about some dystopian future of ‘national master watchlists’ or sharing retailer information with third parties to unknown ends. It gives retailers control and comfort in their compliance position by not allowing their watchlists to be merged with other organisations or shared far and wide.
“This is a human-centred tool that simply helps frontline colleagues make better decisions based on a retailer’s information about past offending. It gives them the context on whether an individual has been violent or used a weapon before, and they can decide how they want to respond - it’s a very human approach and isn’t making any key decisions for them, or automatically flooding police with alerts.
Pilot results from other jurisdictions where retailers are using Subject Recognition show a significant drop in high-harm incidents, with almost all verified alerts resulting in no further safety incident occurring, meaning frontline workers have the context to respond appropriately and go home safe at the end of their shift.
Retailers can configure system-level thresholds for serious offending to create their watchlists, while meeting their requirements of proportionality, and accountability for their data. Non-match data is discarded instantly, and multiple points of "human-in-the-loop" give retailers the confidence that there is no automated decision-making at key steps.
Auror UK retailer data this year shows the top 10 per cent of offenders are responsible for almost 70 per cent of retail crime. For some retailers, that figure is more than 80 per cent of total crime in their stores.
Violence in UK retail stores increased by another 13 per cent so far this year according to Auror, and insights show one in every 10 crime events involve violence or weapons.