The Privacy Commissioner says he has concerns about a six-month trial of facial recognition technology which is under way at a number of North Island New World and Pak'nSave stores.
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster will run an inquiry concurrently with Foodstuffs North Island's facial recognition technology (FRT) trial, as the supermarket giant looks to combat repeat harmful behaviour.
Twenty-five New World and Pak'nSave stores across the North Island will be trialling the technology over the next six months, beginning from today.
Currently, offenders are trespassed from individual stores, and it falls on the staff to remember each person.
The FRT trial means every person who enters a participating supermarket will have their face scanned and matched against a database of offenders' images.
The database will be made up of people who the supermarket has identified as engaging in repeat harmful behaviours, including shoplifting, verbally or physically assaulting staff or customers, breaching trespass notices, robbery or burglary.
The images, which can be sourced from security footage, is advanced enough to recognise faces hidden by hoods, glasses and wigs.
Foodstuffs is trialling the technology to test its effectiveness in crime reduction. (Source: Seven Sharp)
Detailed information on their offence and the length of their trespass notice is made immediately available to security. If there is a match, action can then be taken, including banning or removing them from stores, monitoring them as they shop, or in some cases calling the police.
If there is no clear match, the image is deleted within seconds.
Data will not be shared between stores or used for any other purpose.
Foodstuffs North Island general counsel Julian Benefield yesterday told Seven Sharp they've "seen a massive increase in retail crime statistics recently".
"In the last quarter of last year alone we saw 4719 incidents," he said. "One-third of those are repeat offenders."
Foodstuffs North Island has made "a significant number of changes" to the trial — based on feedback from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner — to mitigate the risks to privacy, as well as improved insights into its impact on customers, Webster said.
He added that while Foodstuffs North Island "is to be applauded for their willingness to make these privacy enhancing changes", the trial "is not without risk given the effectiveness of the technology and the operational protocols are untested in a supermarket setting".
Signage on the FRT trial will begin to appear in participating stores from next week.
'Promise of huge benefits'
The trial is being carried out after the Privacy Commissioner asked Foodstuffs North Island to provide evidence that biometric technologies such as FRT are a justified way to reduce retail crime, Webster said.
The data from the trial will be used by Foodstuffs North Island to decide whether to roll out the technology further.
"New Zealanders deserve to shop for their milk and bread without having their faces scanned unless it's really justified," Webster said.
"We wouldn't accept being fingerprinted and checked at the door before shopping for groceries — that sounds ludicrous — but FRT is a similar biometric process that is faster, machine-run, happens in a nanosecond, and creates a template to compare your face to, now and in the future."
He said while they "want people to be safe as they shop and work", questions remain "about whether the technology will be effective in stopping violent behaviour or preventing harm".
"It's also not an FRT-or-nothing situation. There are other options in place to deal with retail crime and therefore Foodstuffs North Island needs to find hard data that it works and is necessary."
The Privacy Commissioner said he is particularly concerned about bias and accuracy, noting that global evaluations of even the most accurate FRT software showed false matches are more likely to occur for people of colour, particularly women.
"I am particularly worried about what this means for Māori, Pasifika, Indian, and Asian shoppers especially as the software is not trained on New Zealand's population," he said.
"I don’t want to see people incorrectly banned from their local supermarket and falsely accused."
Webster said while Foodstuffs North Island has had consultations with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner over a lengthy period, the office does not necessarily endorse the use of FRT.
"I will be looking for evidence after the six-month trial that the use of FRT has made a practical and statistically significant difference to the incidence of retail crime in Foodstuff North Island supermarkets relative to other less privacy intrusive options," he said.
"It's my job to protect New Zealanders' privacy and we need to make sure, in instances like this FRT trial, that New Zealanders can trust that where their personal information is being used is necessary to the job at hand, and that the privacy risks associated with it are managed.
"Protecting privacy is key to ensuring human dignity, safety, and self-determination. It is a key part of what makes us a free and democratic society. New technologies have the promise of huge benefits. My job is to ensure that we don’t accidentally give up our privacy rights along the way."
As the trial and inquiry get underway, Webster will consider if any further action is necessary to protect shoppers' privacy.
Anyone inadvertently affected by the trial can raise their privacy concerns with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
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