Foodstuffs South Island will tomorrow begin a three-month trial of facial recognition (FR) technology in three Christchurch stores, as part of its ongoing efforts to keep customers and team members safe.

Foodstuffs South Island General Manager of Retail, Wholesale & Property, Tim Donaldson said the co-operative will be trialling FR as part of its commitment to providing a safe shopping and working environment.

Donaldson said: “We’re seeing some people repeatedly target our stores with serious, threatening behaviour, even after being trespassed.  This trial will help us understand if facial recognition can help our teams identify repeat offenders so we can act quickly to prevent them causing more harm.”

How the system works

When someone is violent, threatening or aggressive in a Foodstuffs South Island store, a specialist trained team will review the incident. Only after careful assessment will the offender be added to the FR watchlist.

The FR system compares the images of everyone that enters a trial store against the images of people on the FR watchlist.  If the system detects a match, it sends an alert, and two trained team members manually review it.  They decide whether it is a match, and if so, what response is appropriate. This may include observing the person, contacting Police, or intervening to ask them to leave the store - if it is safe to do so.

Only images that are matched with a person on the watchlist are stored. Images of all other people who visit the FR Stores and are not on the watchlist, are not kept and are instantly deleted.

Privacy and safeguards
Foodstuffs South Island takes privacy extremely seriously. Before starting the trial, the co-operative engaged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and completed a Privacy Impact Assessment. The Co-op continues to work with privacy experts to ensure the trial complies with New Zealand’s privacy requirements.

Privacy safeguards include:

• Clear and limited purpose. The sole purpose of FR is improving the health and safety of staff and customers by reducing the serious threatening behaviour of repeat offenders.
• Only people who have previously been violent, threatening or aggressive in Foodstuffs South Island stores will be entered into the FR watchlist and this is done by a specialist, trained team.
• Images of anyone not on the watchlist are not kept. They are instantly deleted if no match is made. 
• The FR system is calibrated to only send an alert where it detects a match with an accuracy level of at least 92.5% - this is a high threshold.
• All FR system matches are manually reviewed and verified by two trained team members before any action is taken.
• No images of minors (people under the age of 18) or vulnerable people are entered into the FR watchlist.

“We recognise some people may have questions about the use of FR,” Donaldson said. “That’s why we’ve published clear information on our website about how the system works and the safeguards we’ve put in place and are happy to answer any questions about how FR will be used in our trial.”

Trial details

 The trial will start on Wednesday, 29 October and will take place at:

• New World St Martins, 92 Wilsons Road, St Martins, Christchurch
• PAK’nSAVE Papanui, 171 Main North Road, Redwood, Christchurch
• PAK’nSAVE Moorhouse, 297 Moorhouse Avenue, Sydenham, Christchurch

At the end of the three-month trial, results will be carefully reviewed before any decisions are made about future use of FR technology.

Between March and September 2024, Foodstuffs North Island successfully trialled facial recognition across 25 of its New World and PAK’nSAVE stores.  The Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s public inquiry into the trial found it had met privacy standards. FR continues to be used in 25 North Island supermarkets and other retailers have followed suit.

For more information about the trial, including answers to common questions, visit:
www.foodstuffs-si.co.nz/news-room/Facial-Recognition

Questions or concerns can be directed to: [email protected].