A woman shopper had to face harassment and public humiliation recently at a Home Bargain store in Greater Manchester since she was wrongly marked as a shoplifter due to an error involving facial recognition retail security company Facewatch.
The firm meanwhile has stressed that its facial recognition was not at fault, and that a human error in the store was the cause of the incident.
As reported by BBC last week, Danielle Horan was escorted from the two branches of Home Bargains stores in Greater Manchester on two occasions, without any explanation.
The woman later discovered that she was falsely accused of stealing about £10 worth of items after her profile was added to Facewatch's facial recognition watchlist.
Horan told BBC that she at first "thought it was a joke" when the manager of Home Bargains in Regent Road, Salford, asked her to leave the shop on 24 May.
Soon after, a similar incident happened again at another Home Bargains store in Fallowfield, Manchester, when she visited the store with her 81-year-old mother.
"As soon as I stepped my foot over the threshold of the door, they were radioing each other and they all surrounded me and were like 'you need to leave the store'," she said.
"My heart sunk and I was anxious and bothered for my mum as well because she was stressed. But I was ready for it because of what happened the previous time. I just fought my corner and said 'you need to tell me why'."
According to the report, it was only after repeated emails to both Facewatch and Home Bargains that she eventually found there had been an allegation of theft of about £10 worth of toilet rolls on 8 May. Her picture was circulated to local stores alerting them that they should not allow her entry.
Horan said she checked her bank account to confirm she had indeed paid for the items she was being accused of stealing.
"Because I was persistent I finally got somewhere but it wasn't easy, it was really stressful," she said. "My anxiety was really bad – it really played with my mind, questioning what I've done for days. I felt anxious and sick. My stomach was turning for a week."
Facewatch confirmed that the individual was incorrectly added to the retailer's watch list due to the human error at the store.
A Facewatch spokesperson said, “We acted swiftly once this matter was brought to our attention and we can confirm that there was no error whatsoever with our facial recognition technology.
"Working closely with the retailer, we reviewed the incident in full and, once we were informed the items had been paid for during an earlier visit, the individual’s data was immediately removed from our system.
“We acknowledge and understand how distressing this experience must have been and the retailer has since undertaken additional staff training to ensure the system is used fairly, lawfully, and in line with our high standards.
“Facewatch exists to help retailers prevent crime and protect their employees in a way that is lawful, proportionate and respectful of individual rights. To put this into context, shoplifting in England and Wales has reached a record 516,971 offences, and incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers have surged to over 2,000 per day.
"We work continually with all of our retail partners to ensure that their use of Facewatch meets the highest possible standards in order to deter crime and protect employees.
"The system uses dual facial recognition algorithms and human verification to ensure accuracy and has been audited to 99.99 per cent precision.
"We continually review our technology and processes to ensure they meet our own high standards and remain fully compliant with UK data protection legislation and latest regulatory guidance."
While Facewatch states that "complaints are extremely rare", Madeleine Stone, senior advocacy officer at the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, claimed that they had been contacted by more than 35 people who have complained of being wrongly placed on facial recognition watchlists.
In a similar incident, Big Brother Watch is supporting the legal complaint made by a 62-year-old woman against Facewatch and Home Bargains after she was wrongly blacklisted by facial recognition after staff at Home Bargains falsely accused her of stealing a pack of paracetamol worth 39p.