The BBC have reported that a privacy pressure group, Big Brother Watch, have launched a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office about Southern Co-op.

It is said that Southern Co-op operates about 200 convenience stores in the south of England and is installing facial recognition technology in some of them.

The idea is that the technology would capture the facial features of customers to the shop and compare it with a database of alleged shoplifters or people who have been banned for anti-social behaviour. If such a person were noted then a member of shop staff would approach them to ask if they needed any help, which would of course indicate to them that they had been noticed.

Shops and other retailers find this kind of technology attractive because it could reduce the incidence of shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. So, it has a commercial and staff protection benefit.

However, it raises a number of issues. Is it right that all, or virtually all, visitors to a retailer could be routinely captured on CCTV, without them having given explicit permission? How long would that data be retained for and for what purposes? What would be the criteria for getting on the database to be identified as a shoplifter or some other person of interest to the retailer – retailers could add people to their database blacklist even if they have not been convicted of anything. How would people on the blacklist know and could they challenge it? Could innocent shoppers find themselves on the blacklist? There is no suggestion that Southern Co-op is doing these things or anything wrong, but facial recognition technology presents a number of challenges along these lines and the ICO will have to make some determinations when dealing with Big Brothers complaint.

The ICO has issued an opinion to retailers and others on the use of Live Facial Recognition Technology in public places. It does not go so far as to say it is illegal, but it identifies a number of key issues, such as why and how the systems are used, transparency and data subjects’ rights, and the potential for bias, which would have to be addressed.

The opinion concludes “when LFR (Live Facial Recognition) is used in public places for the automatic and indiscriminate collection of biometric data, there is a high bar for its use to be lawful.”

It looks like the Big Brother complaint and others like it, should lead to some clarification of what is allowed and what not, with the processes to be followed in this developing area of technology.

 

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