Fascinating to hear the inside story… Channel 4 have been granted rare and exclusive access to a CCTV monitoring centre at the retailer Boots’ headquarters in Nottingham. https://youtu.be/4Z0C8yxJI1M Channel 4 understands that figures released by the British Retail Consortium later this week will show that violence and abuse against staff have doubled since 2019. Thefts […]
Retailers, join our live Facewatch demonstration and learn from leading retailers how Facewatch has worked for them. Places are limited, please click here to register. The Grocer reports supermarket bosses saying theft levels are ‘off the charts’ and it’s only going to get worse. According to the Office for National Statistics, 89% of adults in […]
Facewatch was recently under the spotlight when privacy advocate NGO Big Brother Watch filed a legal complaint with the UK’s Information Commissioner claiming that Southern Co-operative’s use of the firm’s live facial recognition cameras in its supermarkets was “unlawful.” Facewatch were pleased to see that Biometricupdate.com wrote a very balanced article covering the story: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202208/facewatch-counters-big-brother-watchs-biometric-surveillance-claims-plans-expansion
Big Brother Watch claims supermarket biometric scans of “thousands of shoppers” is “unlawful” and “Orwellian in the extreme”. Shoppers can be spied on, blacklisted across multiple stores, and denied food shopping despite being entirely innocent”. Orwellian? What? To use a new technology that works for retailers to protect their employees, customers and assets?! A misleading […]
Emmanuelle Jardin, Eat 17 Store Manager: “We can see a big difference. No big shoplifters any more. They think, we can’t go there any more because it’s not worth it, because they’ll get caught every time” THANK YOU EMMANUELLE. Unprompted, unscripted and from the heart. You’d have thought we’d paid her, the fact is we’ve […]
Play video here: Fraser explains how to access the code and suggests that a principles based approach along with greater levels of adoption to it, could help avoid some of the alarmist and irresponsible reporting that has undermined the very good and increasingly invaluable contribution facial recognition (tech) is making.
Play video here: Adoption of the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice is a good place to start with regards to Operating Responsibly as Fraser explains in more detail. Facewatch endorses this and is recognised for operating above and beyond the requirements of UKGDPR but Nick wants to take this even further.
Play video here: Fraser explains that establishing clearly defined standards of ethical behaviour would enable businesses to either compete or be a barrier to entry for those that choose not to be ethical. Nick suggests in future it should be the operators of the technology that are accredited, more so than the technology itself.
Play video here: Fraser and Nick agree that businesses bringing facial recognition to market need to demonstrate that they take peoples concerns very seriously regarding how their data might be used. Behaving responsibly, transparently and through inviting questions is an imperative if such concerns are to be assuaged and trust established.
Play video here: Nick & Fraser discuss the requirements and benefits of aggregating data from multiple sources to solve more crime and the challenges of establishing public trust.
