Facial recognition technology in UK shops will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders, with civil liberties groups warning of a 'dangerous escalation' towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector.
Facewatch launches police alert feature
Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury's, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to 'alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match'. The system will be launched in autumn and will warn police in an average of four seconds when the 'worst offenders' are flagged on its network.
Nick Fisher, Facewatch's chief executive, described it as a 'unique technical development' that aims to support a coordinated response to the highest-risk and most prolific offenders.
Civil liberties concerns
Civil liberties groups have voiced alarm at the development, saying it had 'shot on far ahead of the regulation' and was 'upending' the way retail crime was dealt with. Charlie Whelton, policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said the group was concerned about this 'untested, opaque development' and the way facial recognition technology had been allowed to 'proliferate without anything to govern it'.
'It's not against the law to walk into a shop even if you've committed crimes in the past,' he said. 'The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn't committed a crime, but there's a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it's not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it's very hard to argue with that when it happens to you.'
False identifications and bias
A number of people have been forced to leave shops after being falsely identified by Facewatch technology as a shoplifter, with some describing it as 'Orwellian' and saying they felt as though they were 'guilty until proven innocent'. Evidence suggests black and Asian people are more likely to be incorrectly identified than white people.
Britain's biometrics watchdogs have also warned that national oversight of facial recognition is lagging behind the rapid expansion of the technology across police forces and the retail sector.
Expansion plans
The use of Facewatch technology looks set to quickly expand, with Sainsbury's recently announcing plans to increase its use from 55 stores to more than 200 by the end of the year. Facewatch said it alerted retailers almost 300,000 times that a 'known repeat offender' had entered a store during the first six months of 2026, and that its system allowed staff to intervene 'before theft, abuse or violence could occur or escalate'.
Office for National Statistics figures for England and Wales show there were 509,566 shoplifting offences in the year ending December 2025, and the British Retail Consortium has warned that violence, abuse and theft is 'spiralling out of control'.
Criticism from experts
Sarah Lasoye, pre-crime programme manager at Open Rights Group, said the technology was 'entrenching a climate of surveillance across public life'. 'Fundamentally, it's an infringement of data and privacy rights,' she said. 'People's faces being scanned without consent and being added to lists is worrying enough, but the speed which Facewatch technology now makes it possible for someone to encounter the police force in the middle of their daily shop is a really dangerous escalation.' She added that the technology failed to address the social and economic root causes of shoplifting and 'only served to further criminalise working-class communities'.
Nuala Polo, UK public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, said: 'There are other, much less intrusive means that you can use to catch shoplifters where you don't need to be scanning millions of faces every day, virtually without consent.' She also noted it was concerning that government plans for a legal framework for facial recognition technology would not apply to the private sector.
Police involvement questioned
The campaign group Big Brother Watch has criticised police for 'inserting themselves into this cowboy operation' and said people would be matched against 'a secret blacklist compiled by unaccountable businesses and private security guards'.
In response, Nick Fisher of Facewatch said: 'No single organisation will solve retail crime on its own. Government, policing, retailers and businesses all have a role to play in tackling the small number of prolific repeat offenders responsible for a disproportionate amount of offending and the harm it causes to shop workers, customers and our high streets. ... It is not about alerting police every time someone enters a shop, it is about exploring how technology can help support a coordinated response to the highest-risk and most prolific offenders.'
