Sainsbury’s has apologised to a customer after they were escorted out of a store over a mix-up with staff and the store’s facial recognition system.
Warren Rajah, a 42-year-old tech worker, recently visited the supermarket’s Elephant and Castle shop, and had been shopping when he was confronted by staff and told he had been flagged by the store’s facial recognition system.
Rajah claimed he was then escorted out of the store by staff. When he protested, staff said he would need to contact Facewatch, the facial recognition firm responsible for the technology at the store.
“Sainsbury’s have apologised but that doesn’t change what’s happened and they are still rolling this out. The process around proving your innocence is wrong,” Rajah told The Grocer.
Sainsbury’s has since confirmed this was “not an issue with the facial recognition technology in use but a case of the wrong person being approached in the store”.
A spokesperson said they have been in contact with Rajah to “sincerely apologise for his experience in our Elephant and Castle store”.
Rajah said he wouldn’t be returning to the store. “I have no interest in shopping anywhere I don’t feel safe,” he said.
“This is untested technology used by untrained individuals in a live environment that requires split second decision making,” Rajah told The Grocer. “Mistakes can and will be made and vulnerable people will be hurt.”
The supermarket began working with Facewatch to trial the technology at its Sydenham superstore and Bath Oldfield convenience store in September, with an aim of increasing colleague and customer safety following the rise in retail crime.
The system alerts Sainsbury’s stores to criminal behaviour submitted by the store or other retailers using Facewatch nearby. Early results from the two trial stores found there had been a 46% reduction in logged incidents of theft, harm, aggression and antisocial behaviour, while 92% of offenders did not return to stores.
Following this, the supermarket expanded its facial recognition technology to five more London stores last month, including the Elephant and Castle store.
Commenting on the incident, a Facewatch spokesperson also confirmed it “arose from a case of human error in-store”.
“We’re sorry to hear about Mr Rajah’s experience and understand why it would have been upsetting,” they said.
“Our data protection team followed the usual process to confirm his identity and verified that he was not on our database and had not been subject to any alerts generated by Facewatch.”
Jasleen Chaggar, legal and policy officer at privacy group Big Brother Watch, added: “The idea that we are all just one facial recognition mistake away from being falsely accused of a crime or ejected from a store without any explanation is deeply chilling.
“This isn’t an isolated incident – Big Brother Watch regularly hears from members of the public who are left traumatised after being wrongly caught in this net of privatised biometric surveillance.”
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