A SUBURBAN mum has been accused of shoplifting after a “facial recognition technology” trial failed.
Tracey Sturgess, from Melbourne, said that staff in her local Kmart labelled her a thief when she attempted to return two unworn jumpers.
A Current AffairA suburban mum has been a victim of a facial recognition trial gone wrong[/caption]
A Current AffairTracey said that she was made to feel like a con-woman[/caption]
Despite having a valid receipt proving that she had purchased the items just two weeks prior, Tracey said she was “insulted” and “intimidated” by staff members.
“I pulled out my items, they had the tags still on them, said to the lady, I’d like a refund please. She said, ‘Ok, just wait a minute’,” Tracey told Nine’s A Current Affair.
The Kmart staff member then went off to review the security cameras without informing Tracey, whilst she waited idly for 20 minutes.
When the woman returned, she begun accusing Tracey of stealing the two jumpers.
“She kept harping on that she hadn’t seen me enter the store and that was infuriating me,” Tracey said.
“I just felt insulted and intimidated by them… I said to her are you implying that I’ve stolen the item?”
After a fierce disagreement, Tracey did eventually get her refund.
But she said she was made to feel like a con-woman and could not let the issue slide – so she contacted Kmart’s head office.
The customer service operator told her that the store was trialing “facial recognition” and that she had been flagged.
A spokesperson for Kmart has since said that the term “facial recognition” is incorrect and that they don’t actually use that technology.
Instead, they blamed the incident on a new customer service CCTV trial they were conducting.
They have now apologised to Tracey and promised that they will be ending the trial.
There are concerns that these sorts of trials will begin affecting more people however, as other retailers are set to begin using facial recognition more.
Tom Soultston, the Digital Rights Watch director, said that people should definitely be worried.
He said: “I think it’s inevitable there’ll be more mistakes as these systems become more widely used and placed in more public places.”
While Terry Hartmann, the vice president of the facial recognition company Cognitec, has called it a powerful tool with many uses.
He said: “One of the biggest costs to retailers is the costs of stolen goods from a store.
“People who might have shoplifted from another store can be registered, people who might have been convicted that you know about, people who do fraud like returning goods and taking something somewhere else in the store, taking it to the returns counter out the back of the store.”
Indeed, the Met Police in the UK have revealed that they have been able to crackdown on shoplifters this year through the use of facial recognition technology.
A pilot project using CCTV supplied by 12 leading retailers in the capital has already resulted in 149 suspects being pinpointed within days of its launch at the end of September.
While robots that can trace criminals through facial recognition scans have started being used in Chinese railway stations.
A Current AffairTerry Hartmann says that facial recognition is a powerful tool[/caption]
Police robots using facial recognition have been patrolling railway stations in ChinaGetty
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