Asda denies ‘thousands’ of complaints over facial recognition trial
Asda has rejected claims that it received “thousands” of complaints about its facial recognition trial, instead claiming it only received 89.
The supermarket chain originally came under fire from privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch, which claimed Asda’s facial recognition trial at five of its Greater Manchester Stores garnered over 5,000 complaints from shoppers.
The trial went live last month. The system works by scanning facial images and comparing the results to a list of known individuals who have previously engaged in criminal activity at one of the supermarket’s sites.
If a match is found by the automated system, a member of the head office security team can then conduct a remote check and provide feedback to the store in real time.
Following the trial, Big Brother Watch said it called upon its subscribers to complain to Asda about its use of the technology, calling it “Orwellian” and “dangerous” over its use of customers’ biometric data.
However, the grocery giant has now hit back, refuting Big Brother Watch claims and telling Grocery Gazette it has only received 89 emails complaining about the trial through any of its official email channels.
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“Like all retailers, our stores are subject to increasing and unacceptable levels of retail crime and on average, four Asda colleagues were assaulted at work every day last year,” said an Asda spokesperson.
“We have launched this trial in five stores for a limited period to assess how it can keep colleagues and customers safe. This trial uses Asda’s existing CCTV system and fully complies with all data protection regulations.”
However, the pressure group said it was “confident” the retailer received thousands of complaints, adding that the hashtag #StopAsdaSpying was trending on social media platform X in the UK, while it also received donations for its ‘Anti-Asda facial recognition’ campaign in the first day.
It has not been confirmed by either party whether the emails could have been sent to an unmonitored inbox, or flagged as ‘spam’, but the grocery retailer has reiterated its teams have not received the claimed number of emails across any of its channels.
This new dispute is not the first time a retailer has created controversy over the use of facial recognition technology.
In 2022, Southern Co-op facial recognition trial in partnership with tech provider FaceWatch was described as “unlawful” by Big Brother Watch.
3 Comments. Leave new
I don’t agree with this type of surveillance, especially as it’s likely illegal ut that the State, the police, and other authorities agree with it and pick and choose what should be allowed or disallowed. Courts decide what is and isn’t allowed, and this area of surveillance should be determined in the Supreme Court. And no, I’m not a shoplifter and have no intention of ever stealing, but if you’re old (judging by the name), you’ll want the toughest of laws on everyone before you pop your own clogs, just to spite everyone younger; that’s exactly how the older generation operate in the UK. There’s no country anything like this one when it comes to attitudes from the older generation. But, good news.. they aren’t around for much longer!
Isn’t it a bit ‘Big Brother-ish’ for Big Brother Watch to use Send Layer to track it’s members emails? This seems like total hypocrisy and given the level of retail crime in the UK at the moment I think businesses should be able to do anything they can to identify known criminals entering a store. It is no different to ta security guard who can recognise the known culprits.
It’s quite telling they are fannying around with this sort of (customer) unwanted technology that only facilitates further staff cuts… whilst The Core Business Asda ‘Rome’ burns.