Sainsbury's staff eject shopper after misidentifying him as offender
Warren Rajah was wrongly ejected from a Sainsbury's supermarket in south London after staff misidentified him as an offender using Facewatch facial recognition technology. Facewatch confirmed he was not on its database, and Sainsbury's apologised, attributing the incident to human error rather than a technology failure.
What happened
Warren Rajah was instructed to leave Sainsbury's Elephant and Castle store in south London without explanation after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software.
Rajah was approached by three staff members including a security guard, who looked between him and a phone before nodding to colleagues and telling him to leave. When asked why, he was directed to a poster about facial recognition and told to contact Facewatch.
Facewatch confirmed Rajah was not on its database and stated 'Facewatch did not play any part in [him] being approached at the store'. Sainsbury's apologised for the 'human error' and offered a £75 shopping voucher.
Reported impact
Rajah, a data professional, described the experience as 'Orwellian' and expressed concern about walking around fearful of misidentification as a criminal.
He was especially concerned for vulnerable customers, saying 'Imagine how mentally debilitating this could be to someone vulnerable, after that kind of public humiliation.'
Index analysis
Sainsbury's stated this was not an issue with the facial recognition technology but a case of the wrong person being approached in store, and claimed nobody had been wrongly identified by Facewatch technology and this was the first instance of someone being wrongly approached by a store manager.
Rajah was not reassured, noting that the Facewatch system relies on humans to interpret alerts and that he sees Sainsbury's staff as being insufficiently trained.
Governance controls
The store is one of six in London where Sainsbury's recently rolled out Facewatch technology in response to rising theft and violence against staff.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.