Facial recognition software in stores is wrongly pegging innocent customers as thieves. TheBBC has the story.
Sara needed some chocolate – she had had one of those days – so wandered into a Home Bargains store.
“Within less than a minute, I’m approached by a store worker who comes up to me and says, ‘You’re a thief, you need to leave the store’.”
Sara – who wants to remain anonymous – was wrongly accused after being flagged by a facial-recognition system called Facewatch.
She says after her bag was searched she was led out of the shop, and told she was banned from all stores using the technology.
“I was just crying and crying the entire journey home… I thought, ‘Oh, will my life be the same? I’m going to be looked at as a shoplifter when I’ve never stolen’.”
Facewatch later wrote to Sara and acknowledged it had made an error.
Facewatch is used in numerous stores in the U.K. – including Budgens, Sports Direct and Costcutter – to identify shoplifters. …
It’s not just retailers who are turning to the technology.
On a humid day in Bethnal Green, in East London, we joined the police as they positioned a modified white van on the high street.
Cameras attached to its roof captured thousands of images of people’s faces.
If they matched people on a police watchlist, officers would speak to them and potentially arrest them. …
The BBC spoke to several people approached by the police who confirmed that they had been correctly identified by the system – 192 arrests have been made so far this year as a result of it.
But civil liberty groups are worried that its accuracy is yet to be fully established, and point to cases such as Shaun Thompson’s.
Mr. Thompson, who works for youth-advocacy group Streetfathers, didn’t think much of it when he walked by a white van near London Bridge in February.
Within a few seconds, though, he was approached by police and told he was a wanted man.
“That’s when I got a nudge on the shoulder, saying at that time I’m wanted.”
He was asked to give fingerprints and held for 20 minutes. He says he was let go only after handing over a copy of his passport.
But it was a case of mistaken identity.
“It felt intrusive… I was treated guilty until proven innocent,” he says.
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