Foodstuffs South Island is testing facial recognition technology at three Pak’nSave stores in Christchurch.
While itsPrivacy Impact Assessment states the technology will not be applied to vulnerable people or to anyone under 18, a report also noted that, across its South Island stores, six of the 10 most frequent offenders were under 18 years old.
“While six out of the top 10 offenders are minors across the FSSI store network, no minors or vulnerable people will be included in the watchlist during the project,” it said in its report.
Foodstuffs South Island justified adopting facial recognition partly by citing that “the escalating level of serious threatening behaviours by repeat offenders in FSSI supermarkets poses a significant risk to the health and safety of staff and customers in-store.”
The company said the high proportion of teenage offenders did not change its view that limiting facial recognition to adults was an effective way to tackle the problem.
“Its purpose is to assess whether facial recognition technology can help our teams identify adult repeat offenders who have previously been involved in serious incidents so they can step in early to prevent further harm. The trial is also helping us understand the operational impacts and processes involved with using facial recognition in our stores,” a spokesperson said.
Over the past year, it had identified 206 repeat offenders across 38 stores in 32 suburbs, linked to more than 1,000 incidents, the privacy assessment said.
“We’re seeing increasing levels of serious, threatening and violent behaviour in our stores from repeat offenders across all different age groups.”
The three-month trial started in October at its Pak’nSave stores in Redwood and Sydenham, plus New World St Martins.