Facial recognition technology has proved to be pretty controversial over all these years. There are a lot of ethical and moral debates surrounding the technology, and that is why it has been ruled as ‘unlawful’ in the UK and some big tech firms in the US like Amazon and IBM too.
However, it is quite useful too as it can help controlling crime on a lot of levels. Facewatch is a firm that developed a cloud-based facial recognition system that it sells to retailers in various other countries where it is not illegal. But despite being unlawful in the UK, the famous food retailer The Co-Op foods started a trial of Facewatch’s facial recognition technology in 18 of their stores.
The main purpose that the retailers told was they wanted to use this system in their stores that are located in areas where the crime rate is very high. To protect their employees, they initiated the trial of this technology that would alert the shop employees if a person with a record of theft and assault enters the store. This would give some heads-up to the employees, they could think about their line of action and act accordingly as the situation would allow, thus preventing getting assaulted or robbed.
This system was initiated by an independent co-op chain that runs over 200 stores in the South of England, called the Southern Co-operative. The loss prevention officer of Southern Co-operatives, Gareth Lewis was the first person who broke the news about this trial on Facewatch’s website. In his letter, he had mentioned the successful trial of the facial recognition technology system developed by Facewatch in a limited number of stores of the Co-Op foods.
Now, the intent of the Co-op retailers was really good, and they are not the only retailers in the world who are using this technology to avoid any criminal activity in their stores.
According to the Southern Co-operative group, this system was GDPR-compliant and was effective because there has been an 80% rise in assaults and violence against their employees. The purpose of using this system is just to recognize an offender and to take the proper action against them before it is too late for the store employees.
Most of the time, a heist goes wrong, and store employees get injured because of wrong planning as they panic and do not know how to react.
When a robbery is happening or an offender is inside a shop, the employees panic and do not react appropriately. Most of the time, colleagues come to help when the crime has already been done. So, the retailer group is trying to improve the security of the employees at the stores.
Despite the noble notion, the matter of privacy concerns still needs consideration.
This whole idea of implementing facial recognition technology in some stores is not sitting well with some civil rights groups and privacy advocates. After this trial’s report surfaced, some privacy groups wrote an open letter to the food retailer group and asked them if they are sure about the legal status of using this technology in their stores. Secondly, they are concerned if the store owners send the reports and share their customers’ data with the police?
Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch says that this trial is ‘deeply chilling’ because an ethical company is running it and is intrusively collecting its customers’ information.
Silkie Carlo believes that the facial recognition system can lead to biased and inaccurate arrests with innocent people getting labeled as criminals in the police databases. There are many more repercussions of this trial that can lead to serious harm to the innocent people who visit those stores. Besides, such things happen in dictatorships, not in democracies. Silkie also called out the Southern Co-op group for this ‘serious error of judgment’ and to take off this system immediately from its stores.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
