He said when he contacted Facewatch, he was told to send in a picture of himself and a photograph of his passport before the firm confirmed it had no record of him on its database.

I fucking wouldn't

So now I have to submit a subject access request to get Sainsbury’s to delete my biometric data every time I need milk.

Fuck that.

Ftfa: facial recognition triggered. Staff got notification and approached and ejected the wrong person. The facial recognition in this case is the humans taking action.

It’s still wrong.

And this is why i now shop in tesco

This shit needs to be heavily regulated, with massive fines for anyone who inconveniences a customer due to a false positive or a staff error such as what happened in this case.

He said supermarket staff were unable to explain why he was being told to leave, and would only direct him to a QR code leading to the website of the firm Facewatch, which the retailer has hired to run facial recognition in some of its stores. He said when he contacted Facewatch, he was told to send in a picture of himself and a photograph of his passport before the firm confirmed it had no record of him on its database. “One of the reasons I was angry was because I shouldn’t have to prove I am innocent,” Rajah said. “I shouldn’t have to prove I’m wrongly identified as a criminal.” He described the incident as feeling “quite like Minority Report, Orwellian”. He said while doing his normal shop, he was approached by three members of the store’s staff, one of whom appeared to affirm that he was the person pictured on a device they had. It is understood the Facewatch system flagged someone else who had entered the store, and staff mistook Rajah for him. Rajah was concerned some form of permanent record implying he had been involved in criminality might have been created on Facewatch’s system. Eventually, the firm told him he was not on its database and referred him back to Sainsbury’s.

I think the main point is being missed, what does it matter even if did have a criminal past? We're meant to have a rehabilitation focused justice system, which doesn't work if you exclude ex-offenders from the spaces they need to be in to live. If it didn't detect him actively committing a crime, then it shouldn't have been an issue.

What the fuck kind of business does a grocery store have to store people's biometric data? Fuck that. 

"sorry, you can't buy food because of surveillance capitalism's inherent violence"

Time to boycott.

Fuck Sainsburys

I have a senior data protection role in a public sector organisation. I actively do everything I can to prevent AI and biometrics being used except in the most innocuous of cases (eg letting people use chatgpt to help write stuff).