Sainsbury’s to start using facial recognition technology in stores

Sainsbury’s will soon introduce facial recognition across its supermarkets, in a move privacy campaigners told Metro is ‘chilling’.

The divisive technology will be trialled for eight weeks at the chain’s Sydenham superstore and Bath Oldfield Sainsbury’s Local store.

Sainsbury’s bosses said that using facial recognition in shops is to curb shoplifting, rather than monitoring customers or staff.

If the trial is a success, the supermarket giant plans to roll it out across its 1,400 stores.

Facial recognition is software that maps, analyses, and confirms the identity of a person’s face in a photograph or video.

The tech, now often powered by artificial intelligence (AI), is trained using photos of millions of people so it can match one face to another.

While many of us use facial recognition every day to unlock our smartphones, the police also use it to track suspects and pubs look out for troublemakers.

Stores sometimes use facial recognition to identify faces that have been put on watch lists, such as shoplifters, by scanning customer faces.

Sainsbury’s told staff this week that it is working with facial recognition security system Facewatch, also reportedly used by Home Bargains, Flannels and Sports Direct.

The software will be used to help store security ban people who are ‘violent, aggressive or steal in the store’, Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s chief executive, told Metro.

Records, he added, will be deleted if the software does not recognise the face of reported individuals.

But facial recognition has been criticised by human rights and privacy campaigners, who have accused it of racially profiling people and invading their privacy.

Madeleine Stone, a senior advocacy officer at Big Brother Watch, told Metro: ‘Sainsbury’s decision to trial Orwellian facial recognition technology in its shops is deeply disproportionate and chilling.

‘Facial recognition surveillance turns shoppers into suspects, with devastating consequences for people’s lives when it inevitably makes mistakes.’

Stone said Big Brother Watch often hears from ‘innocent people’ who have been accused of wrongdoing because of facial recognition mix-ups.

‘Facial recognition is dangerously out of control in the UK,’ she added.

‘Sainsbury’s should abandon this trial and the government must urgently step in to prevent the unchecked spread of this invasive technology.’

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2022 that asked if the grocer has any facial recognition cameras installed, a Sainsbury’s privacy team member said: ‘We do not use facial recognition technology and have absolutely no intention of doing so.’

Speaking today, Roberts said that the retail sector is ‘at a crossroads, facing rising abuse, anti-social behaviour and violence’.

‘We must put safety first,’ he added.

Shoplifting incidents have been rising for years, with almost half a million cases reported last year in England and Wales, an all-time high.

While violence and abuse against shop workers rose to 1,300 incidents a day in 2024, according to the trade body, the British Retail Consortium.

More than one in two Sainsbury’s shoppers said they support the use of facial recognition cameras to protect people, a July survey by the business found.

Crime and Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said: ‘Retail crime causes significant harm to shop workers, businesses and communities, threatening livelihoods and eroding public confidence.

‘That’s why we’re working with businesses like Sainsbury’s to tackle this issue head-on.’

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