Sainsbury’s has temporarily suspended its use of live facial recognition tool Facewatch at its East Dulwich store after a customer was wrongly challenged by the staff allegedly using the data by the technology as a suspected shoplifter and asked to leave.
Facewatch has confirmed to Asian Trader that its live facial recognition technology was "not at fault" in this incident. Meanwhile, Sainsbury's confirmed to Asian Trader that it has apologised to the customer and that the incident was caused by "human error".
Matt Arnold, 46, was shopping at the south London branch on Aug 6 when he was approached by two members of management while waiting for a staff member to approve an alcohol purchase at a self-service checkout.
The shopper had scanned his shopping and Nectar card before asking a member of staff to authorise the alcohol purchase. Instead, he was approached by management and told he could not be served because of an incident that had allegedly taken place “earlier in the week”.
Arnold described the encounter as a “terrifying glimpse of the future”, warning that the growing use of surveillance technology in retail could leave customers humiliated when automated alerts are acted on without sufficient human judgement.
"They came over and said I had to leave. The staff member said I'd been identified by the AI, and the cameras had flagged me," he told BBC London. "A shoplifter does not walk around with that much shopping, they don't scan it through, they don't put their Nectar card through.
"But what upset me was thinking this is what the future could be - people just listen to what the machine tells them to do without thinking about the consequences."
He also argued that even if the technology was as accurate as Sainsbury’s claimed, the 0.2% error rate is “a lot of people when millions go into a Sainsbury's shop each week”.
However, Facewatch said the technology had correctly generated an alert in the incident and that the failure occurred in how it was subsequently handled in store.
A Facewatch spokesperson told Asian Trader, “We can confirm that our live facial recognition technology was not at fault in this incident.
"A correct alert was sent to the retailer, but was subsequently subject to human error in the way it was handled and communicated by the retailer.
“When we suspend a retailer from our system, this is a precautionary measure that prevents the store from receiving further alerts while the retailer reviews its use of the system and undertakes appropriate actions, including further colleague training where necessary.”
Sainsbury’s head office contacted Arnold the following day to apologise and also maintained that the incident was the result of “human error” rather than a failure of the facial recognition technology.
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told Asian Trader, “We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology.
"Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98 per cent accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.”
Sainsbury’s added that when it receives a customer complaint, it asks Facewatch to temporarily suspend the system in the store while it investigates what has happened in the process. This allows time to provide additional training or review processes where needed.
The latest incident is not the first time a Sainsbury’s store using Facewatch has faced scrutiny over the way facial recognition alerts are handled.
Earlier this year, a London-based shopper Warren Rajah was shopping in the Elephant & Castle branch of Sainsbury's when he was suddenly approached by three staff members and was told to leave the store immediately.
Despite being a regular shopper at the branch, he was not given a proper reason and was directed to contact Facewatch who in turn asked him to send in a picture of himself and a photograph of his passport.
Rajah said he felt as if he had faced a "trial" in the supermarket aisle, with the three Sainsbury's staff members acting as his "judge, jury and executioner". He also claimed that Sainsbury's staff is "insufficiently trained" to handle Facewatch leads.
The two incidents put the spotlight not only on the accuracy of facial recognition technology, but on what happens after an alert is generated and whether retailers have the training and procedures needed to ensure legitimate customers are not wrongly challenged.