Sainsbury's suspends use of AI at London branch after facial recognition blunder

Sainsbury's has suspended its use of live facial recognition technology at a London branch after a customer was wrongly challenged as a shoplifter.

Matt Arnold, 46, told the BBC he was buying items at the East Dulwich store when he was stopped by management at a self-service till on August 6.

The comedy promoter was waiting for a staff member to approve an alcohol purchase when he was approached by two management staff who told him he could not be served due to an incident "earlier in the week".

He told BBC London: "They came over and said I had to leave. The staff member said I'd been identified by the AI, and the cameras had flagged me.

"A shoplifter does not walk around with that much shopping, they don't scan it through, they don't put their Nectar card through.

"But what upset me was thinking this is what the future could be - people just listen to what the machine tells them to do without thinking about the consequences."

Mr Arnold said he was escorted off the premises and, as he looked back from the entrance, saw an overhead CCTV monitor alert with a red circle surrounding his face.

He received an apology from Sainsbury's head office the next day.

A Sainsbury's spokesperson told the BBC the technology has been paused at the Dulwich store while an investigation takes place into the incident.

They said: "We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology.

"Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager."

It is not the first time an innocent shopper has been wrongly singled out by Sainsbury's staff in London after being flagged by facial recognition software.

The data strategist was in his local store when staff approached him, asked him to leave and took his shopping.

Warren Rajah was told to leave his local Sainsbury’s after staff mistook him for an offender flagged by facial recognition software (Handout/PA)

PA Media

When a “distraught” Mr Rajah asked why, staff pointed to a sign showing that the store used facial recognition technology, he said.

But he was mistaken for another person who was in the system as an offender and was also in the store at the time.

Sainsbury’s said there was no fault with the Facewatch technology, which has been rolled out in seven of its stores, and has apologised to Mr Rajah.

On being misidentified, Mr Rajah told the Press Association: “You feel horrible, you feel like a criminal and you don’t even understand why.”

He said: “To tell you to leave the store without any explanation gives you the impression that you’ve done something wrong.

“If you speak to anyone in the public, that is what they will tell you, when you’ve been forced and excluded from an environment, you automatically think you’ve done something wrong, especially with security.

“That’s just a normal human response.”

Mr Rajah said that after being removed from the store he contacted Facewatch, which told him he was not on its database after he sent a copy of his passport and photo of himself.

Sainsbury’s later apologised and offered him a £75 shopping voucher.