Home Bargains is tackling theft by deploying AI-enabled cameras capable of detecting items that pass a checkout without being scanned.
The variety discounter is working with UK loss-prevention tech firm SAI (Storewide Active Intelligence) and Ireland-based Everseen in two recently launched stores trials.
SAI, which Home Bargains is working with in its Speke store, turns CCTV cameras “into specialised and capable in-store AI assistants”, according to the tech firm’s marketing material.
The AI solution can detect and record “misscans” at self-checkouts – items that pass the checkout but aren’t included in the basket total.
Speke is one of only four Home Bargains stores to have gained self-checkouts, in a cautious rollout that began last year. The retailer has a strict limit of only six self-checkouts to one staff member, so as not to overwork assistants and compromise vigilance.
Home Bargains is also working with both SAI and Everseen in another store trial aimed at detecting so-called ‘skip-scanning’ at staffed checkouts. Sometimes referred to as ‘sweat-hearting’, the practice involves an assistant allowing a friend’s items to pass without charging them. It is understood no skip-scanning has been detected in the trial.
The solutions are part of a suite of loss-prevention technology in use by Home Bargains, which is also working with Facewatch and Auror.
Facewatch uses facial recognition to alert staff to the presence of a known offender when they enter the store. It relies on a national database shared by multiple retailers and only retains images of people linked to a crime.
New Zealand-based Auror pools evidence of crimes committed across multiple retailers, and presents it to police once the value of theft by a single offender exceeds the £200 threshold for them to investigate.
The government has set out to repeal the ‘low-value shoplifting’ threshold with the new Crime and Policing Bill, introduced to parliament in February. In the meantime, M&S is also among retailers using Auror to respond to repeat offenders whose individual thefts may be below the threshold.
Home Bargains operations director Paul Rowland told The Grocer the retailer found technology more effective than security guards, the presence of which could sometimes escalate rather than de-escalate situations, while the priority was to protect staff by preventing crime before it could be committed.
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