Joint letter to UK retailers regarding the potential use of facial recognition technology (FRT) within their stores

As part of our campaign 'The End of Privacy in Public' and our wider work monitoring developments of facial recognition technology (FRT) in the UK, we continue to to challenge the government, the police and the private sector regarding their unfettered roll out of FRT in the UK.

To this end, we co-signed a letter sent on 4 June 2024, alongside UK civil society organisations campaigning against the use of facial recognition, to retailers across the UK calling on them to not use live FRT within their stores. Retailers such as Home Bargains, Co-op supermarkets, Flannels and Sports Direct have been using live facial recognition technology software supplied by company Facewatch, to identify shoplifters in their stores across the UK. 

The purpose of the letter was to inform retailers of recent civil legal action brought against Home Bargains and Facewatch brought by a teenage girl who was misidentified by live facial recognition and wrongly accused of being a shoplifter in a Home Bargains store, where she was searched, removed from the store and told she was barred from a number of shops across the UK. The letter was sent to retailers who are known Facewatch clients and non-Facewatch clients calling on all retailers to commit to not using live FRT within their stores in future.