Shop risks legal action for posting 'shoplifter' CCTV online A new online initiative designed to crack down on shoplifters could be set to rebound badly on the retail chain pioneering it - and police advice on the law in matters of surveillance may yet again prove to be more optimistic than accurate. Liverpool-based operator TJ Morris Ltd, better known on the High St as Home Bargains, …
Your article does identify potential legal concerns. Shoplifters are hardly likely to be targets for vigilante action, though. And if they are reported to the police and convicted, they will have little claim for invasion of privacy.
The main danger would be if a shoplifter was underage, I would suspect, as that could lead to police prosecution rather than requiring a civil action by a shoplifter.
no - they wouldn't would they? As they already post such "unidentified" photos round the stores employees as part of the shopwatch initiative they are already doing it. I would strongly suspect TJ Morris's actions are done with the tacit approval and in probable partnership with police.
Anybody identified in the photographs fancy their chances in Civil Court against the might of the company with the Police backing them up?
For balance I would like to point out that professional shoplifters are scum and should be put in the stocks, as opposed to teenage twits who need some serious education with the instrument of your choice.
Big Brother - obviously
Presumably he's hoping his customers are 'bargain' and don't have the money to sue him whenever he makes a false accusation against them publicly on his website.
If I was them, I would give his shop a miss. Any misunderstanding could be fixed at the exit if he stopped them, but once he's libel'd them there is not fix except monetary damages.
He'd be better off stopping people as they exit, like every other shop on the planet.
Given the draconian libel laws in the UK, I'd have thought the shops would be well advised to take down these pictures promptly. Once an accusation of libel has been made, it's up to the defendent to prove their innocence - English law assumes that, a basic case having been made, they are by default guilty (no, really). So, anyone who could reasonably be identified from such a picture could make a pretty good libel case against the retailer, who would then have to demonstrate that their allegation was true (i.e. that the person was, in fact, guilty of theft)!
The danger is that they post people suspected of shoplifting, i.e. who might not be shoplifters. I imagine it could be argued that falsly accusing someone of shoplifting and posting their picture on a website, whether done in good faith or not, could amount to loss of reputation - what happens if your employer visited the site, for example?
It's the same with suspected fare-dodgers or whatever - it might seem like a good idea but you have to protect the innocent, otherwise once people start suing for libel, the companies will start to feel the impact in their pockets!
j
Unusual inversion? I don't think so. If they've got video of these people shoving stuff into their pockets and walking out (or, more boldly, walking right out with lumber etc. and driving off..) then both would be true -- they "could" be sued for libel if they were wrong. And they'll be happy to go over the evidence with anyone who wants to claim they are innocent. They're still innocent until proven guilty, but a vid of them shoplifting is really pretty open-and-shut.. The CCTV they have is higher quality than I'm used to seeing so there won't be much question of it.
A civil court action would be heard before qualified judges, and almost certainly without a jury, so you'd probably get on just fine. It's criminal stuff which tends to be held before either Magistrates (ie, local people with no legal training who have nominated themselves) or in a Crown Court before a jury — in both cases groups of people that perversely still seem willing to automatically give all police evidence a free card.
John 73: defamation is civil, so there's no such thing as guilty, and the standard is the balance of probabilities, not the criminal standard of beyond reasonable proof. The reverse burden is troubling, but the alternative is that outlets like newspapers can print whatever they want provided that the person named can't establish that it is false. Instead the law favours that those who make statements must be able to establish that they are true. It's really not that controversial, and has been ruled not to be against Article 6 ECHR (ie, the right to a fair trial).
"By entering this premesis you are hereby informed CCTV is in use for surveilance purposes. Images or video footage of individuals suspected of cmitting a crime on the premesis may be circulated both to authorities and across other public mediums including but not limited to the internet in the attempt to identify said suspects. Beware your actions in this store are being recorded, and video footage associated with a known crime may be made public. You agree, by entering this establishment to waive any rights against the proprieter should images you you appear online associated with a crime. individuals captured in posted footage not associated with the crime resorded will be obscured."
Done, problem solved.
Of course, it;s just as easy to hand tohe footage over to police, then let THE POLICE host the images.
working in the retail area my peronal experience of dealing with plod(even when you give them cctv footage ) get one of these responses
1. take it away then a week later " it doesn't work with our system"
2. heres your crime number go away
3. do you know there names? addres? etc if no see 2
4. a long sigh then #2
the annoying thing i they have plenty of time to do "sting" style ops to catch people selling underage kid stuff. this results in staff having to id older and older (now its think 25) and the end result is more threats and actual violence/robberies when you refuse service.
again reporting it to the police leads to them arriving 7 hours later when your in the local a&e to give the current on duty staff one of the four options above
AC for obvious reasons
...I'd like to check one thing - how well known and used a store is home bargains across the country?
In liverpool it's a particularly well known shop - having been setup here - and therefore attracts a lot of customers (and before you all start bashing people for shopping in bargain stores it makes sense, given their cheaper prices for cleaning products, etc). More customers probably ends up leading to more shoplifters and therefore a higher representation in the 'league table'.
However given there are only 7 crimes represented in the list I hazard a guess that not all suspected shoplifters are listed - perhaps Liverpool store managers take a more no nonsense attitude which, coupled to the Liverpudlian "grass=scum" attitude, leads to a hugely biased representation.
I am no lawyer, but, my understanding is that you cannot reverse common law by merely posting a sign that says entry is acceptance of whatever terms and conditions the signee wishes.
For instance, in this fair land, Australia, we are inundated with signs on shops that say that entry to that shop is conditional on allowing inspection of bag contents ,if requested, upon exit. Nope, they cannot do that, even if they gave you what looked like a legal contract and you sign it prior to entry, common law cannot be repealed by agreement.
I genuinely believe that the managing director of T.J Morris Ltd is a paedophile. So I'm sure he'll have no problem with me putting his picture up around town with a statement to that effect. If he disagrees with me then he can come to see me and we can go through the evidence that I have.
If he can convince me that he is not a paedophile then I'll take the pictures down. That sounds fair and reasonable to me.
"... You agree, by entering this establishment to waive any rights against the proprieter should images you you appear online associated with a crime ..."
The problem with "contracts" such as these is that they are virtually unenforceable; the clamping / car parking trade mainly revolves around such 'contracts' and there are very few instances of judges settling in favour of the car parking company.
Not only that but publishing photographs of people online alongside their /alleged/ offence is a sure way to get yourself on the wrong end of a libel suit. If that weren't the case you could publish photographs of the director of TJ Morris Ltd. alleging him to be a twat and their lawyers wouldn't be able to do a thing.
Is this company a subsidiary of TJ Maxx? The names are suspiciously similar. TJ Maxx had crappy (i.e. non-existent) security on their wifi connections leading to the compromise of 50 million, possibly nearly 100 million, credit cards.
In Canada, TJ Maxx operates under the names "Winners" and "Homesense", the latter bearing an uncanny resemblance to "Home Bargains".
If T J Morris is part of TJ Maxx, I think we have a winner in the contest for "most technologically clueless company".
El Reg journalists, do your duty!
You can't sue anyone for 'suspecting' you of something or we would all be in court. Only if they directly accuse you of an offence can you sue for libel.
A civil libel case costs at least £15,000 up front to prepare, win or lose. The company apologises the day before the case is heard and posts it on their website. Hence, end of claim. YOU still have the £15,000 bill to pay. No court case, no damages/costs.
Before someone suggests it, 'no win, no fee' lawyers wouldn't touch it with a bargepole at 50 paces.
"I don't know about the ethics of this one, but the first shoplifter is hot - *would*"
You fancy the muscular crop haired man wearing baggy shorts and sandals...........ok, I don't have a problem with that, just wondering why you want to tell us about it.......and if you think we care.
Coming from a retail management background myself, I would suspect that this company uses the same standards for arresting shoplifters as I do, that being before I make an arrest, I ask myself "Am I sure enough that this person has stolen something that I would rest my career on it?" You only get one bad apprehension where I come from before being shown the door. So if the company is sure enough to post these pictures, you can be sure they have the evidence to back it up.
You forgot the line about:
Turn yourself in for reward>
Then SUE.
PROFIT!
@Michael C - associated with a known crime
Ah, now there's the rub. Without having actually stopped and searched the person, you have no evidence that an actual crime has been committed. Now you're asking for trouble.
@NHS IT guy - the first shoplifter is hot
Erm, I think you meant to say: the first ALLEGED shoplifter is hot!
@Joseph Gregory -Only if they directly accuse you
And putting your image up on the interweb and saying you're a shoplifter isn't an accusation? It is where I live.
frank ly said:
I genuinely believe that the managing director of T.J Morris Ltd is a paedophile. So I'm sure he'll have no problem with me putting his picture up around town with a statement to that effect. If he disagrees with me then he can come to see me and we can go through the evidence that I have.
If he can convince me that he is not a paedophile then I'll take the pictures down. That sounds fair and reasonable to me.
-------------
Absolute genius!!
Absolutely idiotic.
It's not hard to find the managing director of T.J.Morris. The point behind posting these images is that they have not been able to identify the suspects and are appealing for help in doing so.
They could easily have avoided most of the controversy by using other wording implying that the person could potentially be a witness to a crime. No doubt in this case some of them would be dumb enough to turn up and claim the reward for identifying themselves.
1) Get underage friends A, B and C that never shop together,
2) All three go separately stealing in a city where they're unknown
3) After each is caught on CCTV and the site, A identifies B who identifies C who identifies A.
Result: some minor prosecutions that don't stand out from the rest of their convictions and ASBOs etc, plus 500quid each. Profit!
Pickpocketing icon for obvious reasons.
You may genuinely believe it, but do you have anything in the way of evidence? No? Then don't be so daft.
I do like the way folks here think they're the first people to notice the potential problems. I'd be willing to bet that not only have they taken legal advice on this, but they have crystal-clear footage of these chavs filling their pockets. So "if you believe we're wrong, contact us and we'll take the pictures down" should actually be interpreted as "please do contact us, and we'll have Plod down on you so fast you won't know what hit you".
Or, this being Liverpool: "please do contact us, and our security guards will be round tonight to give you the kicking you so rightfully deserve".
(The bloke stashing things in his inside pocket, for obvious reasons.)
"Innovative" just carries with it the odour of another New Labour solution that ignores those pesky, out of date niceties like proof, courts and innocent till proven guilty.
There's a pattern here.If you're a business and you feel you're being hard done by, all you have to do is point the finger and accuse away, rightly or wrongly, and the government and it's hired thugs in uniform will back you to the hilt.
Poor? - tick
Shifty/unsympathetic looking? - tick
Left our shop without giving us your money?- tick
You just have to be guilty of something.
That's one shop I'll definitely be boycotting.
Someone mentioned Crimewatch as being the same as this case.
But considering this statement:
"If police put up a wanted poster, they have what is known as 'qualified privilege' and are protected in law."
Am I correct in thinking that having police officers on the show, endorsing and even contributing to the information broadcast invokes this privilege?
If so T J Morris are on very thin ice indeed.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
