Asda has launched a live facial recognition trial that will track shoppers walking down its aisles.
The two-month pilot of the new technology that police use to monitor protests and large crowds comes as retailers say they are facing an “epidemic of retail crime”.
It launched this week at Asda stores in Ashton, Chadderton, Harpurhey, Eastlands and Trafford Park in Greater Manchester after the supermarket recorded 1,400 staff were assaulted last year – an average of four assaults on staff per day.
The facial recognition technology has been integrated into Asda’s existing CCTV network and scans images of shoppers comparing the results to a known list of people who have previously committed criminal activity on an Asda site, the supermarket said.
If a match is found by the automated system, in a matter of seconds a member of the Asda head office security team can report a suspect to the store in real time.
An Asda spokesman said: “Store management will alert the authorities whenever they feel it is right to do so when an offence is being committed, that is true of all stores and not those only participating in the trial.
“Only the mathematical data is stored of confirmed persons who have committed an offence, and this is for the two months of the trial.”
The supermarket giants said results would be assessed but if successful, it could be rolled out nationally.
According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), there are more than 2,000 incidents of violence and abuse against shopworkers every day – a threefold increase since 2020.
Liz Evans, Asda’s chief commercial officer, said: “The rise in shoplifting and threats and violence against shopworkers in recent years is unacceptable and as a responsible retailer we have to look at all options to reduce the number of offences committed in our stores and protect our colleagues.
“We consistently look for new ways to improve the security in our stores and this trial will help us understand if facial recognition technology can reduce the number of incidents and provide greater protection to everybody in our stores.”
The use of live facial recognition by police forces in public places – where cameras scan an area and analyse every person that passes through – has raised concerns about privacy.
Campaigners have branded the technology as “disturbing” and “unnecessary” as they likened it to “Orwellian mass surveillance” in Russia and China.
There are also questions about how data is stored and the companies who supply the technology.
Human rights organisation Liberty raised concerns about racial profiling using the new technology after a study by the National Physical Laboratory found that it was eleven times more likely to misidentify black women rather than white women.
An Asda spokesman said they didn’t recognise those concerns, adding: “Once the system finds a suspected match, an alert is then sent to a member of our internal security team who will confirm the match is accurate and at which point they will alert the store.”
The trial comes as shoplifting has surged to another record high with nearly half a million offences recorded last year as retailers warned crime in shops is “spiralling out of control”.
The alarming figures came as a separate survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) found that incidents of retail crime – including racial and sexual abuse, physical assault and threats with weapons – have reached three times the level they were in 2020.
“Retail crime is spiralling out of control. People in retail have been spat on, racially abused, and threatened with machetes,” said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson.
“Every day this continues, criminals are getting bolder and more aggressive. We owe it to the 3 million hard-working people working in retail to bring the epidemic of crime to heel. No one should go to work in fear.”
