Man ‘publicly humiliated’ after shop staff using facial recognition cameras mistake him for thief

A man was ordered out of a Sainsbury’s store he had shopped in for 10 years after staff using facial recognition cameras mistook him for a criminal.

Warren Rajah entered the store next to the Elephant and Castle station on Tuesday when he was suddenly approached by two members of staff and a security guard.

They took his shopping away from him and walked him out of the building, and when asked why, they simply pointed to a sign revealing the store used facial recognition technology.

Warren, 42, told Metro: ‘They came up to me and asked to see my “bar code”. I didn’t know what this meant so I just showed them my Nectar card.

‘Then they told me to leave. It was the most humiliating moment of my life, being escorted out the place I have shopped in for 10 years in front of my community.’

The supermarket had cameras operated by Facewatch in use, which according to their website has a 99.98% accuracy of recognising offenders.

They describe themselves on their website as, ‘the only crime prevention tool that proactively identifies known criminals, allowing staff to act before a crime has been committed’.

But to prove he did not in fact have any criminal convictions, Warren had to email an image of himself alongside a copy of his passport to be taken off the system.

He said: ‘This just feels like a massive invasion of my privacy. Why should I be proving I am innocent to them?

‘I started panicking massively because I don’t know anything about this company or what they do. Do they record crimes as they happen? Are they linked to law enforcement? Would this impact my career?’

It comes as facial recognition cameras are deployed across London, by police and retailers alike.

The Met Police is already facing a legal challenge over their use of the technology, which matches faces against criminal databases.

But private companies have their own databases submitted by independent and chains, of people they believe to have been stealing from them.

No confirmation of criminal acts is required, opening the database up to mistakes, meaning innocent shoppers such as Warren are being ‘publicly humiliated’.

He said: ‘Sainsbury’s has called me to apologize and offered me a £75 voucher, but that’s not the point. What if this had happened to someone much more vulnerable than me?’

Both the supermarket and technology company claimed it was not the fault of the cameras, but human error by staff inside the store who approached the wrong person.

Facewatch said: ‘We’re sorry to hear about Mr Rajah’s experience and understand why it would have been upsetting.

‘This incident arose from a case of human error in-store, where a member of staff approached the wrong customer.

‘Our Data Protection team followed the usual process to confirm his identity and verified that he was not on our database and had not been subject to any alerts generated by Facewatch.’

But Warren added that although the technology may seem ‘perfect’, if it is not applied properly ‘people will get hurt’.

He said: ‘However perfect the technology may be, it still relies on there to be human intervention.

‘And if people are not trained to properly manage and handle and make the right decisions, you will always end up with innocent people being hurt.’

Sainsbury’s said: ‘We have been in contact with Mr Rajah to sincerely apologize for his experience in our Elephant and Castle store.

‘This was not an issue with the facial recognition technology in use but a case of the wrong person being approached in store.’

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