Facial recognition technology deployed in high street shops is falsely identifying innocent customers as thieves, leaving them humiliated, ejected from stores and with almost no means of redress, a growing number of cases reveal.
Ian Clayton, a 67-year-old retired health and safety professional from Chester, was shopping at Home Bargains one February lunchtime when a staff member approached him and told him to put everything down and leave. Stunned, he was briskly walked past the tills. When he asked why, the reply came: “You’ve come up on our system called Facewatch as a shoplifter. There’s a poster in the window.” He was left outside with a QR code to scan and no explanation.
It later emerged, after Clayton submitted a formal subject access request under data protection law, that he had been incorrectly linked to a previous shoplifting incident at the same store. “It was like I was guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “It leaves a pit in your stomach and when I look back now I can feel it again.” Home Bargains eventually offered him a £100 voucher as a “gesture of goodwill without admission” on condition the details stayed confidential. He declined. “Really, you’re trying to buy my silence?” he said.
Warren Rajah, a data strategist in south London, was told to put down his shopping basket and leave his local Sainsbury’s in February after staff claimed the Facewatch system flagged him. After sending countless emails, he discovered he was not on the Facewatch database at all – staff had misidentified him. He was offered a £75 voucher. When he said he did not feel comfortable returning to the store, he was told to use it online. “Who is regulating these companies and can they be trusted with our information? And more importantly, no one has actually defined what your recourse is when something goes wrong,” he said.
Jennie Sanders, 48, from Birmingham, was browsing in B&M last year when a security guard told her she had been flagged on Facewatch and he would have to escort her around the store to check she was not stealing. “It was in front of loads of people, and I was really embarrassed. I said I wanted to leave and he escorted me out,” she said. She later found she was listed for allegedly stealing a bottle of wine, which she says never happened. B&M told her it had no CCTV evidence from that day. She was taken off the system and offered a £25 voucher. “I took a couple of days off work, I was absolutely beside myself. Why was I on a database of criminals without my knowledge?” she said.
Technology, accuracy and human error
Facewatch is a live facial recognition system being rolled out across the UK to clamp down on retail crime. The company’s website claims a 99.98% accuracy rate and says it sent 50,288 alerts to shops last month alone, including B&M, Home Bargains, Sports Direct, Farm Foods and Spar – all of which use the software. Nick Fisher, the chief executive of Facewatch, said the three cases were “extremely rare” when viewed against more than 500,000 alerts sent each year. He argued that each incident resulted from “human error in the way processes were carried out in-store, rather than any failure of Facewatch’s technology”. He added: “The system is designed to support, not replace, human decision-making.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said the retailer had “sincerely apologised” to Rajah, stressing that the issue was not with the facial recognition technology but a case of the wrong person being approached. “The Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate and all matches are reviewed by trained managers, with additional training provided after this incident,” the spokesperson said. Home Bargains and B&M declined to comment.
Broader concerns about the technology have already been acknowledged by the Home Office, which last year admitted that facial recognition cameras were more likely to incorrectly identify black and Asian people than white counterparts, and women more than men. Conflicting studies on overall accuracy have also emerged. UK biometrics commissioners have warned that national oversight is lagging far behind the rapid expansion of the technology, which is now spreading across police forces as well as retail stores.
Rajah said he saw the issue as a civil rights matter. “We already live in a country that has issues with racism, it’s an unavoidable issue. And we know cameras cannot pick up features of people that have darker features with as much accuracy. And this could be happening to people who are much more vulnerable than me,” he said. Sanders said she was “really upset” and worried about the sharing of data between retailers: “I thought: ‘I’m going to be treated like a shoplifter in every store. I’m not going to be able to do any shopping in person ever again.’”
No clear recourse for the wrongly identified
Those who have been falsely identified say they were given no support and did not know how to complain or prove their innocence. Clayton tried calling a phone number on a Facewatch poster but was told the company did not take calls – he had to send an email instead. It was only after he submitted a formal subject access request that he got answers. Sanders complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the formal watchdog for personal data use, but seven months later she had still not heard back. “We’re told to raise complaints and send all correspondence to the information commissioner, but they don’t get back to you. What the hell is happening with any sort of response to the victims of this?” she said.
Rajah also considered complaining to the ICO but could find no information on how to do so. “They are so toothless,” he said. “And this issue has been well reported, and they haven’t publicised a formal complaints process. Where’s that information? How can you complain when there are no avenues to follow?”
The ICO said in a statement that it recognised “the harm and upset that can be caused by misidentification” and that use of facial recognition technology must “strictly comply with data protection law and be handled with care and transparency”. It said anyone with concerns about how their data has been collected, used or shared, and who cannot resolve the issue directly with the retailer, “has the right to raise a complaint with us”. The watchdog added that it continues “to actively regulate in this area and will be publishing further retail‑focused guidance to support retailers in understanding and meeting their data protection obligations, while ensuring the public is properly protected.”
For those already affected, the damage is done. Clayton described the experience as “Orwellian”. “We’re constantly being recorded and put on these systems but should we be there? It feels like spying without cause. I’m hyper aware of cameras everywhere now, I’m so aware of them,” he said. Sanders said she tries to stay away from places with cameras at all. “It has really affected me,” she said. Rajah said he had major concerns about the technology being rolled out in police forces: “No one has actually defined what your recourse is when something goes wrong.”
