{"id":17964,"date":"2026-07-12T07:35:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T14:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=17964"},"modified":"2026-07-12T07:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T14:35:56","slug":"alarm-over-launch-of-facial-recognition-in-uk-shops-that-instantly-alerts-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/12\/alarm-over-launch-of-facial-recognition-in-uk-shops-that-instantly-alerts-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Alarm Over Launch of Facial Recognition in UK Shops That Instantly Alerts Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Is this why lawlessness is allowed in liberal run areas, for an excuse to bring in this type of surveillance? On the one hand, it’s kind of funny that thieves will be excluded from going into businesses, but they should just be locked up for their crimes, and for longer if they don’t learn. But it’s the beginning of the government determining if you can buy or sell, which I remember reading somewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/jul\/10\/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Civil liberties groups say Facewatch system in stores such as Sainsbury\u2019s and B&M is \u2018dangerous escalation\u2019<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Jessica Murray <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Facial recognition technology in shops will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders, with civil liberties groups warning of a \u201cdangerous escalation\u201d towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury\u2019s, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to \u201calert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facewatch\u2019s chief executive, Nick Fisher, said the \u201cunique technical development\u201d would be launched in autumn and would warn police in an average of four seconds when the \u201cworst offenders\u201d were flagged on its network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil liberties groups have voiced alarm at the development, saying it had \u201cshot on far ahead of the regulation\u201d and was \u201cupending\u201d the way retail crime was dealt with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie Whelton, the policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said it was concerned about this \u201cuntested, opaque development\u201d and the way facial recognition technology had been allowed to \u201cproliferate without anything to govern it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not against the law to walk into a shop even if you\u2019ve committed crimes in the past,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn\u2019t committed a crime, but there\u2019s a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it\u2019s not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it\u2019s very hard to argue with that when it happens to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
Photograph: Joe Giddens\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Customers inside a B&M store. The retailer is one of more than 100 businesses that will use the technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of people have been forced to leave shops after being falsely identified by Facewatch technology<\/a> as a shoplifter, with some describing it as \u201cOrwellian\u201d and saying they felt as though they were \u201cguilty until proven innocent\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence suggests black and Asian people are more likely to be incorrectly identified<\/a> than white people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain\u2019s biometrics watchdogs have also warned that national oversight of facial recognition is lagging behind the rapid expansion<\/a> of the technology across police forces and the retail sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Lasoye, the pre-crime programme manager at Open Rights Group, said the technology was \u201centrenching a climate of surveillance across public life\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFundamentally, it\u2019s an infringement of data and privacy rights,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople\u2019s faces being scanned without consent and being added to lists is worrying enough, but the speed which Facewatch technology now makes it possible for someone to encounter the police force in the middle of their daily shop is a really dangerous escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the technology failed to address the social and economic root causes of shoplifting and \u201conly served to further criminalise working-class communities\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of the Facewatch technology looks set to quickly expand, with Sainsbury\u2019s recently announcing plans to increase its use from 55 stores to more than 200 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facewatch said it alerted retailers almost 300,000 times that a \u201cknown repeat offender\u201d had entered a store during the first six months of 2026, and that its system allowed staff to intervene \u201cbefore theft, abuse or violence could occur or escalate\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Office for National Statistics figures for England and Wales show there were 509,566 shoplifting offences in the year ending December 2025, and the British Retail Consortium has warned that violence, abuse and theft is \u201cspiralling out of control\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But experts argue the use of facial recognition technology in shops to catch shoplifters is disproportionate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nuala Polo, the UK public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, which studies the impact of AI on society, said: \u201cThere are other, much less intrusive means that you can use to catch shoplifters where you don\u2019t need to be scanning millions of faces every day, virtually without consent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added it was concerning that government plans for a legal framework for facial recognition technology would not apply to the private sector. \u201cIf we agree this technology poses significant risks in police use, but we continue to let it be used unchecked in the private sector, there\u2019s a discrepancy there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re acknowledging the technology is risky, but saying we\u2019re only going to mitigate that risk in one instance. We could be creating backdoors into this technology that is partnered with the police but isn\u2019t held to the same standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign group Big Brother Watch has criticised police for \u201cinserting themselves into this cowboy operation\u201d and said people would be matched against \u201ca secret blacklist compiled by unaccountable businesses and private security guards\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Fisher, CEO of Facewatch, said: \u201cNo single organisation will solve retail crime on its own. Government, policing, retailers and businesses all have a role to play in tackling the small number of prolific repeat offenders responsible for a disproportionate amount of offending and the harm it causes to shop workers, customers and our high streets. The work we are doing sits alongside that wider national effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not about alerting police every time someone enters a shop, it is about exploring how technology can help support a coordinated response to the highest-risk and most prolific offenders.

\u201cThis is about the people who commit dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of offences, not the millions of people who simply want to do their shopping. If technology can help protect retail workers, prevent further crime and support policing, we believe it has a responsible role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is this why lawlessness is allowed in liberal run areas, for an excuse to bring in this type of surveillance? On the one hand, it’s kind of funny that thieves will be excluded from going into businesses, but they should just be locked up for their crimes, and for longer if they don’t learn. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17966,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964\/revisions\/17966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}