Foodstuffs North Island is beginning to trial facial recognition (FR) in up to 25 stores as part of its commitment to keep teams and customers safe.
After reports of more than 4500 incidents across FSNI stores in the last quarter, facial recognition would help staff identify previous offenders and their accomplices.
The trial will run for up to six months, hopefully reducing harmful behaviour in stores. It aims to provide safety without compromising privacy.
“Everyone has the right to a safe working environment and a safe place to buy groceries,” said Foodstuffs North Island Chief Executive Chris Quin.
“Shockingly, one of our security team was stabbed recently, and our people are being punched, kicked, bitten and spat at. We’re seeing over 14 serious incidents a week, including an average of two assaults.”
It has been observed that it is often the same people returning to the stores to commit more crimes, and Foodstuffs believes it is its moral and legal duty to make stores safe.
“All images in the FR system will be instantly deleted unless a person has committed a crime, has been aggressive, violent or threatening towards our team members or customers, or has actively assisted in such harmful behaviour.”
The trial has been thoroughly prepared to ensure that customers' privacy is respected, with specialists involved in designing and reviewing the trial. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has also been engaged in the matter, and the entire planning process has been ongoing for the past 15 months.
FR works by matching, in real-time, the faces of people who enter a store against that store’s record of offenders and accomplices. Then, it analyses facial features and converts them into an alphanumeric computer code, which is securely stored.
Only images of offenders and accomplices actively assisting will be retained for two years and three months, respectively, and these need to have at least a 90 percent facial match.
Images of minors and those under 18 or vulnerable will not be enrolled.
Each store that is part of the trial will have clear signage at the entrance. Team members have also been trained on how to approach people who are verified as repeat offenders.
“Each store has robust data protection safeguards in place. Information stored in the FR system will be shared between stores, and no information from the FR systems will be shared with third parties unless this is required by law or to run and evaluate the trial,” said Foodstuffs North Island’s General Counsel, Julian Benefield.
This facial recognition trial will begin today, the 8th of February, to determine whether FR is used more by the cooperative on an ongoing basis.
