Supermarkets set to roll out major change at checkouts across UK | Personal Finance | Finance

UK supermarkets are set to roll out new facial recognition software in a bid to clamp down on prolific shoplifters. Major retailers will be equipped with cameras that can recognise the “worst of the worst” shoplifters, so staff can be alerted as soon as they enter, according to reports.

The technology is being offered by the New Zealand-based company Aurora, which already operates a crime-reporting platform that allows brands including Primark and Marks & Spencer to refer repeat criminals to the police. Nick McDonnell, vice president of Aurora, said the latest advance would allow stores to keep a closer eye on reoffenders, who are four times more likely to be violent, according to the company’s data.

He told The Telegraph: “It doesn’t mean everybody who’s been entered into that system ends up on a watch list. It allows the retailers to know these are almost the worst of the worst.”

“Therefore, I want to select those people from this database, and then the system will suggest to the retailer that these are the people we think should be on your watch list,” he added.

Mr McDonnell said supermarkets would be able to create watchlists based on four criteria: how prolific, aggressive, physically violent or likely to carry weapons offenders were.

The retailers would not share a master list or have insight into each other’s repeat offenders, he confirmed.

He also said the technology was based on “behaviour rather than what you look like” and wouldn’t classify shoppers by characteristics such as ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion.

Signs will also be installed in-store to alert customers to the presence of facial recognition cameras, and any matches will be double-checked by staff before action is taken, the Aurora vice president said.

Sainsbury’s has already launched its own “Facewatch” system, using the same technology for the same purpose, and plans to roll it out across 200 UK stores by the end of the year.

But it has faced opposition, including from civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, which argued that “innocent shoppers should not have to submit to Orwellian identity checks just to buy a loaf of bread or pick up nappies”.

“Sainsbury’s and the police can legitimately target shoplifters but have no right to take face scans from millions of ordinary customers,” the group’s director, Silkie Carlo, said. “The Government must rein in this unchecked mass privacy invasion of the public.”