Facial recognition spreads as a tool to combat shoplifting

Simon McKenzie, a security officer at discount retailer QD Stores outside London, gasped. He had just chased three thieves who had taken several packages of household soap with them. Before the police arrived, he was sitting at a table in the room to do something important: capture the faces of the criminals.

On an antiquated desktop computer, he pulled up security camera footage, pausing to zoom in and save a photo of each thief. He then logged into Facewatch, the facial recognition program his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time these people walk into any store within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will be alerted.

“It’s like someone saying to you, ‘That person you picked up last week has just come back,'” Mr McKenzie said.

Usage facial recognition technology was the police heavily studied in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. Now, as technology improves and its cost falls, systems are becoming more and more embedded in people’s lives. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being used to identify thieves, problem customers and legal opponents.

British company Facewatch is being used by retailers across the country frustrated by petty crime. For just £250 a month, or about $320, Facewatch offers access to a customized watchlist that’s kept close at hand. When Facewatch spots a tagged face, an alert is sent to a smartphone in the store, where staff decide whether to keep a close eye on the person or ask them to leave.

Mr. McKenzie adds one or two new faces each week, mostly people who steal diapers, groceries, pet supplies, and other inexpensive goods. He said he sympathizes with their economic hardships, but the number of thefts is so out of control that facial recognition is needed. Usually, at least once a day, Facewatch alerts him that someone on the watch list has entered the store.

Facial recognition technology is expanding as Western nations grapple with advances in artificial intelligence. The European Union is developing rules that would ban many ways to use facial recognition, while Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, urged retailers to try the technology to fight crime. MSG Entertainment, owner of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, used automated facial recognition. deny entry lawyers whose firms sued the company.

Among democracies, the UK is leading the way in the use of live facial recognition, with courts and regulators signing off on its use. Police in London and Cardiff are experimenting with technology to identify wanted criminals as they walk down the street. In May, it was used to scan the crowd at coronation of King Charles III.

But the use by retailers has drawn criticism as a disproportionate solution to minor crimes. Individuals have little or no idea that they are on a watch list or how to file an appeal. In a legal complaint last year, Big Brother Watch, a civil society group, called it “Orwellian in the extreme”.

Fraser Sampson, the UK’s Biometrics and CCTV Commissioner, who advises the government on policy, said there was “nervousness and hesitation” around facial recognition technology because of privacy concerns and the poor performance of algorithms in the past.

“But I think in terms of speed, scale, accuracy and cost, facial recognition technology can be, you know, literally a game-changer in some areas,” he said. “This means that its arrival and deployment is probably imminent. This is only the case when.”

Facewatch was founded in 2010 by Simon Gordon, owner of a popular 19th-century wine bar in central London known for its cellar-like interior and popularity among pickpockets.

At the time, Mr. Gordon hired software developers to create an online tool to share security camera footage with authorities, hoping it would save police time compiling incident reports and lead to more arrests.

Interest was limited, but Mr. Gordon’s passion for security technology was exciting. He was following the development of facial recognition and had the idea to create a watch list that retailers could share and contribute to. It was similar to the shoplifting photos that stores keep next to the register, but uploaded to a collective database to identify the crooks in real time.

By 2018, Mr Gordon believed the technology would be ready for commercial use.

“You have to help yourself,” he said in an interview. “You can’t wait for the police to come.”

Facewatch, which has facial recognition software licensed from Real Networks and Amazon, is now in nearly 400 stores across Britain. The systems, after learning from millions of photos and videos, read biometric facial information when a person walks into a store and check it against a database of flagged people.

Facewatch’s watchlist is constantly growing as stores upload photos of shoplifters and troubled shoppers. Once added, a person stays there for a year before being removed.

“Mistakes are rare, but they do happen”

Whenever the Facewatch system identifies a theft, a notification is sent to the person who passed the eligibility test “super recognizer” – a person with a special talent for remembering faces. Within a few seconds, the super recognizer must confirm a match with the Facewatch database before sending an alert.

But while the company has created policies to prevent misidentification and other mistakes, mistakes do happen.

In October, a woman buying milk at a supermarket in Bristol, England, was confronted by an employee and told to leave. She was told that Facewatch had flagged her as a prohibited thief.

The woman, who asked not to be named because of privacy concerns and whose story was corroborated by materials provided by her attorney and Facewatch, said there must have been a mistake. When she contacted Facewatch a few days later, the company apologized, saying it was a mistake.

After a woman suffered a seizure, Facewatch delved into its records. It emerged the woman had been put on a watch list following an incident 10 months earlier involving £20 worth of goods, about $25. The system “worked great,” Facewatch said.

But while the technology correctly identified the woman, it didn’t leave much room for human judgment. Neither Facewatch nor the store where the incident happened contacted her to let her know she was on the watch list or ask what happened.

The woman said she did not remember the incident and had never shoplifted. She said she was able to walk out after she didn’t realize her debit card payment hadn’t gone through the self-checkout kiosk.

Madeleine Stone, legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch, said Facewatch “normalises airport-style security checks for everyday things like buying a pint of milk”.

Mr Gordon declined to comment on the incident in Bristol.

In general, he said, “mistakes are rare, but they do happen.” He added: “If this happens, we will acknowledge our error, apologise, delete all relevant data to prevent a recurrence and offer proportionate compensation.”

Approved by the privacy office

Civil liberties groups have raised concerns about Facewatch and suggested its deployment to prevent petty crime could be illegal under UK privacy laws, which require biometric technology to be in the “substantial public interest”.

The UK privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, conducted a year-long investigation into Facewatch. In March, the office concluded that the Facewatch system was permitted by lawbut only after the company has made changes to its operations.

Steven Bonner, the office’s deputy commissioner for regulatory oversight, said in an interview that the investigation has forced Facewatch to change its policies: It will post more signs in stores, share information between stores only about serious and violent offenders, and send out alerts only about repeat offenders. This means that people will not be put on a watch list after one minor offence, as happened to a woman in Bristol.

“This reduces the amount of personal data that is stored, reduces the chance of people being unfairly put on this list and makes it more accurate,” Mr Bonner said. Technology, he said, “is no different than having very good security guards.”

Liam Ardern, operations manager at Lawrence Hunt, which owns 23 Spar stores using Facewatch, believes the technology has saved the company more than £50,000 since 2020.

He called privacy risks facial recognition is exaggerated. The only instance of mistaken identity he could recall was when a man was mistaken for his identical twin who shoplifted. What critics fail to notice is that stores like his operate on thin margins, he said.

“It’s easy for them to say, ‘No, it’s against human rights,'” Mr Ardern said. If shoplifting does not decrease, he said, his stores will be forced to raise prices or cut staff.