Concerns raised over ‘privacy dilemma’ of facial recognition technology at Coles and Woolworths

Consumer privacy advocates have responded with alarm after Coles and Woolworths confirmed they were testing facial recognition technology that they could use in their Australian supermarkets to record shoppers’ personal biometric data.

The two companies confirmed on Monday that they had tested the technology and said they were considering installing it in their Australian stores to crack down on retail crime including aggression towards staff. They also said they had not made a final decision on whether to proceed with the rollout, and neither supermarket chain would disclose which company had provided them with the software they had tested.

The supermarkets’ exploration of facial recognition software follows a decision by the administrative review tribunal in February to greenlight Bunnings’ use of the technology on its customers. After an appeal by Bunnings, the tribunal reversed a 2024 ruling by the privacy commissioner that had found the hardware giant breached the privacy of store visitors by scanning and checking their faces.

Marketing expert Dr Pallant from RMIT University said the trials posed a “security versus privacy dilemma”, when the solution is all about being transparent and educating consumers about how the procedure works. Tom Sulston, the head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, also said facial recognition was “wildly inaccurate”, and the supermarkets’ approach is rendering consumers’ experience unsafe.