Frozen foods supermarket chain deploys facial recognition tech Privacy campaigners are branding frozen food retailer Iceland's decision to trial facial recognition technology (FRT) at several stores "chilling" – the UK supermarket chain says it's deploying the cameras to cut down on crime. The pilot is already in operation at two stores in England: the Food Warehouse outlet in Manningham …
Here's a complaint I made last year about their 99% Aberdeen Angus Burgers where they changed the recipe without changing the packaging:-
I wrote the following review of Iceland's Luxury 4 Ultimate Aberdeen Angus Quarter Pounders 454g earlier this week. My comment has apparently failed moderation, yet I note that I am not the only person to complain. The company has not been in touch with me about my review. See reviews (232 of them) here:-
https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-luxury-4-ultimate-aberdeen-angus-quarter-pounders-454g/66934.html
My review:-
"I've been buying these in-store since the pandemic because there's no onion in them and the meat content is high.
"Not any more. Been feeling quite sick since opening a new pack and finding the unmistakeable taste of onion. Yukh!
"Why does everyone insist on adding onions to burgers?
"And I swear the meat content used to be higher than 90%.
"Edit: This was the ingredients list for the burgers I have bought previously:-
Ingredients. icon. 3 ingredients. Aberdeen Angus Beef (99%), Salt, Ground Black Pepper.
"Anyone else feel that companies should alert customers with a change of packaging when ingredients change? Particularly where allergens not in the original product have now been included (wheat and barley in this instance)."
Current ingredients are:-
"Aberdeen Angus Beef (90%), Water, Onion, Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Rice Flour, Salt, Yeast Extract (contains Barley), Dextrose, Black Pepper, Black Pepper Extract."
The reason I am writing is that surely food companies should alert consumers if they change the allergens in their products without notifying us with some kind of change to the packaging, apart from the ingredients list? For the record I am mildly gluten intolerant and suffer the consequences if my intake goes above a certain level.
… as the article started Frozen Foods Supermarket … you must have missed the satire above.
Never seen any violent crime in Iceland or it’s sister brand Food Warehouse.
The only crimes of any sort seen is the lack of staff on the tills and the low health-quality of most of what they sell.
This isn’t crime prevention - it’s what happens when a state in decline outsources policing to the private sector. Retailers turning to biometric surveillance because public services can’t cope, all while we’re paying the highest tax burden in living memory. It’s not innovation - it’s collapse management. When supermarkets start doing police work, it’s not just dystopian. It’s the end of the social contract.
Unfortunately if the police did return to supermarkets, then it would also be in the form of facial recognition cameras.
Supermarkets have always employed private security. I don't think that the police remit has ever covered internal security in private businesses.
What we really have here is an outsourcing of human jobs to large unaccountable global firms and removing any nuance and flexibility from the system.
In the US they use the police to protect the likes of Walmart and this is how people end up getting shot in the carpark.
And the UK police are busy ensuring that no-one posts hurty words on the internet that might cause someone with blue hair to have the anxieties.
Ah yes, the good old lefty double standard. Elected officials calling for your opponents to be killed is fine from the left.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrj75yx2q0o
Or the more recent 'protests' where the protesters support the elimination of a sovereign nation.
But really what the police are going after doesn't even come close to what you claim. People were arrested for holding up blank sheets of paper during King Charlie's various coronation parades. The police have used the reason 'it might cause someone to have anxiety' as a justification for arrests over social media posts.
And he's done this, in light of overwhelming evidence showing his lips moving and recordings of the sounds he made, as he knows the system isn't going to bully him and likely his political comrades will try and bury the whole thing cos they agree with him.
He didn't really mean it. It was a heat of the moment thing. Any sensible person would not interpret his words as a call to violence.
An old woman got sent to prison for 15 months for writing "Blow the mosque up with the adults in it." on Facebook in the heat of the moment with no means or actually intention to blow the mosque up herself. She went to prison for that. Is this the type country you want to live in? If so... I suppose you're over the moon.
Delayed until August. Most likely caused by the massive cuts to judiciary and associated services. Another Tory regime winning strategy.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/ricky-jones-labour-councilor-trial-riots-delay-b1205817.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wales-moj-government-england-angela-eagle-b2663186.html
He said this through a PA system, in front of hundreds of riled up protesters and the press:
“we need to cut their throats and get rid of them“
It doesn't need days to hear. It is hard to get any clearer of a message than what he said. There is no ambiguity.
This isn't some rando on the interwebs posting for their slack handful of followers. This is (was) an elected official speaking in public to a crowd with national news present. His statement was a direct call for politically and ideologically motivated mob violence against a specific group.
The difference is he knows that he will get good representation, he knows that the system will be lenient due to his political affiliations and he knows that his statement was supported by those around him. You just need to look at the video to see the people in Amnesty International bibs clapping along with him and the look of glee on their faces as he shouts out those words.
Some rando on the interwebs is not going to have good representation and can easily be intimidated by the system. Sir Beer had also promised swift and heavy handed retribution for those who held the wrong opinions.
Julius Streicher didn't actual burn down any synagogues himself but he was still hanged.
"She went to prison for that. Is this the type country you want to live in?"
Yes, it is. What sort of excuse is "in the heat of the moment"? What other crimes should you be let off from if done in the heat of the moment? When you have a large number of people all "heated up", and on the rampage, then it's exactly this type of comment that will motivate them to do the act.
"with no means or actually intention to blow the mosque up herself." - Well you've completely missed the point there, she didn't say she was planning to do it, she was inciting other people to commit the act, and that's the basis for her sentencing.
Break it down.... She was suggesting people that were already angry and rioting, to go to a mosque and murder people of a specific faith. I don't want to live in a country that allows that sort of action. You have to think about your actions in life.
In the case of that councillor's wife who ask people to burn down asylum seekers' hostels with people inside then yes, sure, but it's only a few years since Merseyside Police were claiming that "Being offensive is an offence" and that's without the encouragement Humza Yousaf's thought hate crimes legislation gives Police Scotland to trawl social media for unsatisfactory opinions rather than deal with actual crime.
So yes, you are quite right. Incitement to murder is not "hurty words", and the police should not be treating them as if they were the same.
How about not committing easy to detect crime like inciting violence on socialedia so the police can crack on with catching other criminals instead?
Of course the police will go after easy to prosecute stuff because, shock, it's easy and doesn't take much of their Tory slashed resources
Is calling for an infitada against Israel while on stage at Glasto 'inciting violence'?
Or how about chanting 'Death! Death! Death to the IDF'?
Watching all the bougie upper middle class and almost exclusively Tarquinistas dancing along like good little NPCs.
How much was the cost of a glamping yurt at glasto this year? £10-16k!
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/glastonbury-glamping-yurtel-liquidation-b2757935.html
Nothing says 'down with capitalism' like spending many thousands on a yurt :)
I'm sure a boycott of their stores by shoplifters would change their minds.
However, they aren't the only UK retailer to implement this crap and they won't be the first to ban someone totally innocent, B&M home stores have form for it.
Coincidentally my cynicism of their data retention policies and the big brother use of that crap is the reason I don't enter B&M stores any more.
Fortunately I don't use Iceland at all but that does mean I miss out on such culinary fusion delights as https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/slimming-world-chicken-tikka-lasagne-550g/91248.html
Another recent case involving Home Bargains, this unfortunate person accused of stealing toilet rolls: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr510p7kymo
And another from last month: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-69055945
The latter story mentions Budgens, Sports Direct and Costcutter as other users of Facewatch.
not that I've been to one of their outlets for 20+ years.
I hope that the location of these cameras are made public and no one visits the shops.
There are plenty of videos on YouTube about how to fool these systems. I'd watch them unless you have a lawyer on speed dial who is ready to sue the shops/cops for invalid arrest.
'He said the technology does "not monitor innocent shoppers. It does not store your data."'
Well the first is obviously untrue - it monitors everyone because that's the way these things work. 'Innocent' is an output after you've been monitored. The only thing I'm slightly unclear on is whether it's a gate type system on entry/exit or store wide monitoring.
As for not storing your data - really? The data goes in and I only have their word about what elements it might retain and for how long. It's obviously capable of storing some sort of data for some period otherwise it wouldn't have anything for comparison or for reporting.
I can understand some of the motives for the CEO but the attitude in the statements is a bit too confrontational; when you're in that zone all sorts of things become apparently justifiable when they wouldn't under more considered thought.
Moreover, as the article itself states, earlier this month a completely innocent shopper was blacklisted due to having been incorrectly uploaded to the Facewatch database by a store who claimed she hadn't paid for something when she had - and had the receipt to prove it. So the statement that the technology "does not monitor innocent shoppers" is demonstrably false.
And then given that the completely innocent shopper was not alleged to have been violent in any way, in no way would her presence on the database protect any Iceland member of staff and clearly does not square with the statement that "It helps trained store teams calmly identify repeat offenders who are known to use violence or intimidation. That's it."
Let's be clear, this is primarily about anti-shoplifting. Not about anti-violence. It can't possibly stop someone hitting a shopworker although it might help catch and prosecute such a person after the event.
Personally I'm not 100% against use of this technology. But I am 100% against the inaccurate, false and deceptive quotes around what it does and what it is for.
Go back to proper checkouts.
Why, so that those of us who just want to do a quick shop have to stand in line while some bored person at the head of the queue shares their children's entire life story with the cashier, waits until everything has been scanned before even starting to pack, and finally takes an age to find their loyalty card and their credit card.
No wonder people prefer online shopping.
@Hawkeye:
You say "Let's be clear, this is primarily about anti-shoplifting. Not about anti-violence. It can't possibly stop someone hitting a shopworker although it might help catch and prosecute such a person after the event." but, according to the article, the system doesn't store images if there's no match - so a 'new face' could rob Iceland of absolutely everything in the store, help themselves to the tills and clear off - and the system won't be any use at all in helping to identify the perp.
As I understand it, the system can only flag up someone as matching once they're in the store and then alert staff to the fact. What action the staff take is debatable though: if the suspect is known for being violent, it can't be shop policy to confront them. If someone is known to shoplift but generally does it discreetly and peacefully then I suppose staff can make it obvious that they're being watched. So yes, it's all about discouraging opportunistic shoplifting, which is probably a far bigger problem for Iceland than 'violent crime' will ever be.
Same problem blights all the retailers so I expect other supermarkets will watch how this is accepted by the public and then roll out the same tech as soon as they feel they can get away with it.
"but, according to the article, the system doesn't store images if there's no match - so a 'new face' could rob Iceland of absolutely everything"
While true, I'm guessing the Facewatch s/w doesn't hold separate lists of "suspects" for each of it's clients, let alone for each shop or area and effectively matches against a list of all submitted faces from all client sources. I wonder how long they can store that PII for, especially without consent. And I do wonder how well the "trained staff" are actually trained and what sorts of checks and balances are in place, eg are the data records tagged to separate out possibles, likely, highly likely, "we got CCTV evidence" and convicted? And what are staff trained to do when a "subject" enters who is only a "possible" as opposed to a "convicted"? And how easy will they make it for people to challenge their assessments (as evidenced by the recent high profile" mistakes in the press)?
Re: mistakenly saying "step foot" when they mean the idiom "set foot"
> It's a common phrase
One can believe that it occurs quite frequently these days; hopefully not as commonly as the sensible phrase, but as so many read only unedited social media the ratio, for them, is likely skewed in the unfortunate direction.
> Grow up.
Ah, that is sad. Believing that disliking illiteracy, or simply wanting the words used to actually make sense, is the province of the juvenile - *that* is a disheartening attitude.
So much worse than being told to "suck it up", which is telling us that one is pissing against the wind of casual carelessness. Engaged in a Sisyphean task that will only exhaust us, we are being advised to save our strength - the barbarians will win, best to hope we pass before they overwhelm us.
But now it is being claimed that it is the mark of adulthood to be uncaring.
The company specifically says it will reduce "violent crime" -- when the hell did frozen food shoppers all turn violent? Did I miss that part? The data isn't stored? (how long does it exist? long enough to be transferred or sold? and ... we're just supposed to take that a face value? ... not.).
The solution seems readily apparent -- fresh salad anyone? If non-violent frozen-food consumers vote with their wallet, I bet the CEO changes his tune of the privacy infringing facial recognition escapade. What's the world coming to?? Beam be up Scotty, and if the Enterprise isn't available, I'll take the TARDIS.
I suspect what he's claiming is the system doesn't retain and therefor track, innocent shoppers between stores.
Clearly it has to record the image and retain it so that they can add images of suspected shoplifters to their database.
And yes: Suspected. Until they've been taken to court and been convicted, it's suspected. Or they can only compare the captured image against convicted shoplifters.
Obviously, as the story notes: Someone wrongly accused being added to the database is a problem: If they got flagged at store A and get banned from other stores as a result, all over a mistake? Not good. And that's not a false positive: That's a false allegation. Now add in actual false positives... (as noted elsewhere, certain skin tones are notoriously bad for FRT)...
Add into the mix: Criminals won't care. At best they'll take measures to make sure they're not flagged. At worse, they'll just threaten staff and blatantly steal what they want. Meanwhile innocent shoppers won't take such measures so getting banned due to a false positive? That will upset them, so they'll tell their family and friends, who are also innocent shoppers, and will simply go elsewhere when shopping, reducing footfall not only to that store but that brand, and possibly associated brands, reducing income for the store.
Basically: Old saying in retail is one bad experience for a customer can lose you ten more. So it's best to keep the bad experiences to a minimum. Meanwhile, one good experience might net you one new customer. The only question in that is how much effort is required for either outcome...
You know what you do when you see a person shoplifting food... mind your own business, look the other way. If a person needs to steal food just to survive... that's society failing them... not them turning to crime.
You can only improve society by lifting up those at the bottom first... when you punish those most in need you show that you're no longer a civilised country/person.
You see some one stealing food... look the other way... or better still... buy them something to eat.
@The Dogs Meevonks
"You know what you do when you see a person shoplifting food... mind your own business, look the other way. If a person needs to steal food just to survive... that's society failing them... not them turning to crime."
Seriously? If you honestly believe this person is shoplifting because they cant afford it why dont you buy them some? If they stole your wallet to get some money for food would you want people to just look the other way? You are society, if you accept crime and are unwilling to help then that is you (in your words) failing them. The UK has a whole safety net to catch people struggling, so much so that they stopped measuring real poverty in this country and use a relative poverty measure now.
Nobody is helped when stealing is encouraged.
There are those on the left who have reframed looting and rioting as 'social justice' as it 'rebalances the inequities' between those who have nothing and those 'in power'. The stark reality is that areas shops and businesses will not return to these areas leaving the community in a worse state than before. The 'social justice' results in their lives being worse!
The people spouting this utter claptrap are unaffected as they live in well to do areas often protected by nice walls.
Ah, the annonymous coward who want to try and reframe a starving person stealing to feed themselves or their family as 'rioting & looting' to justify their prejudice and hatred of anyone one is poor... I bet you'd also like to see all people punished if they on benefits just to try and recoup from that less than 1% who might be claiming something they're not entitled too.... How 'civilised' of you... I'm assuming your real name is Jean Val Jean
Many on the political left have been desperately trying to reframe those stealing TVs and phones as 'just stealing a loaf of bread to feed their families'. Despite most of the people involved being child-less and appearing to be already very well fed.
If you're stealing to feed yourself or your family you're not doing smash and grab raids on the Nike outlet or the local Target. You're not going to be burning cars in the street.
@The Dogs Meevonks
"You mean... like the very last words of my post suggested?"
No. Because the last words of your post didnt say that. That would be selectively editing what you said. Let me quote you with emphasis on the problem-
You see some one stealing food... look the other way... or better still... buy them something to eat.
Look the other way is not the answer, it is encouragement for stealing. Quoting myself to hammer this point home to you- "If they stole your wallet to get some money for food would you want people to just look the other way?".
I hope that helps
It's so obvious that this is nothing to with "protecting their staff" but this is rolled out as a straw man argument to deflect what it's really about which is clearly reducing the cost of shoplifting.
If Iceland could get away with sacking everybody they employ (bar their CEO obvs.) whilst still collecting a similar amount of £££ they would do it tomorrow. The idea that corporates care an iota about any of their staff (bar the top corridor) is a sick joke.
I'm sure they can detect palm oil in their products though... Because a few years back Iceland promised to remove all palm oil from their products...
They did so... by removing the 'iceland' branding from their products, so they could claim they'd done it... Literally the exact same packaging on the exact same products... without the 'Iceland' name on them.
If corporations can increase profits whilst screwing over staff and customers, they will do so.
This is the wrong answer to the problem. The answer is to have the police available, turn up, and actually do something.
Facial recognition will do absolutely nothing other than warning the staff to stay out of the way. It is unlikely to deter hardcore shoplifters because they know the justice system is broken and the police often don't respond in any useful manner.
@heyrick
"It is unlikely to deter hardcore shoplifters because they know the justice system is broken and the police often don't respond in any useful manner."
Absolutely. People are not allowed to deal with problems, the police wont and now people are worried about the businesses taking measures to protect their property. Even the private security isnt allowed to do much. No wonder crime is out of control.
Maybe some of the 'officers' need to stop policing tweets and get out there catching criminals, and the justice system prosecuting them. Followed by the government having space to jail them if needed.
The answer is to have the police available, turn up, and actually do something
True, but where's the incentive to do that when the courts will release anyone they catch with only a ticking off, even when they're repeat offenders?
It must be disheartening to keep arresting the same people time and time again, knowing that it won't have the slightest impact on them.
The optimum level for railway fare evasion has long been established - across the UK and Europe - as around 4%. To get it below that generally increases costs more than revenue; allowing it to rise higher loses more than it saves. TfL appear to have forgotten this.
Optimal in monetary terms perhaps. Not great in societal terms to know that 1 in 25 of your fellow passengers doesn't give a f*ck. Similarly shop-lifting, graffiti, speeding and all the other "victimless" crimes.
See also Broken Window Theory.
[TFL reported a rate of 3.4% for 23/24 down from 3.8% in previous FY].
What he says in blx.
Every shopper is guilty by default, unless proven otherwise with this.
False positives will be happening, guaranteed.
It's another store that I can avoid in future.
It reminds of the time my old Sainsburys had the scan receipt to exit. That stayed one year, and now they've ripped it all out.
One of our local shops did that. But the cashiers on the manned tills still asked if you wanted the receipt and the unmanned tills still asked Yes/No if you wanted a receipts. Naturally, quite a lot of people didn't want a receipt and the exit gate could now not be opened. Total farce because no one thought the process through properly. IIRC, at least one guy just forced the gate open and when confronted accused the shop of illegal imprisonment or something :-)
"quite a lot of people didn't want a receipt and the exit gate could now not be opened"
My local supermarket doesn't have that kind of exit system so it's not a problem when I never take a receipt. My thinking is firstly that if I get challenged by security on the way out I can show them the payment notification on my phone as proof of purchase (legal note for the UK: a vendor cannot demand a receipt as proof of purchase because there is no legal obligation to provide a receipt). Secondly, I won't be stealing anything anyway so there.
My first point falls down because I never check my phone notification straight away, once it goes beep I know I'm done and I'm out of there. Also, sometimes the notification takes a few minutes to come up.
The second point doesn't really hold up in reality either because I did once walk out of a shop with about 30 quids worth of stuff because I wasn't concentrating and didn't realise that the automated till "beep" meant transaction declined rather than approved!
Also, in my local supermarket once, the guy in front of me at the automated till walked away with his stuff and as I walked up I noticed that the screen said "payment declined". I quickly told the staff member there and as the previous guy was walking out the front door off in the distance, the staff person shrugged their shoulders and said "meh, it happens". What they meant was that there was a known bug with their tills that meant sometimes it displayed "payment accepted" for a few seconds then changed its mind to "payment declined". By which time, someone in a hurry has already picked up their stuff and walked off. I told the staff person that I've probably done that before (I never hang around the automated till for long and see it as a personal challenge to work it as fast as I can) but they just said "maybe, but what are you going to do? It's not your fault".
> It reminds of the time my old Sainsburys had the scan receipt to exit. That stayed one year, and now they've ripped it all out.
Does that mean we only have to put up with it for another six months before our Sainsburys give up?
Should I be optimistic and buy up all their leftover Guy Fawkes masks on the sixth, in hope of staging a Freedom Party as they tear off the receipt scanner?
Facial recognition is only reliable when you're using it in a many to one scenario. Like "is the face my phone is now seeing the face it has been trained to recognize and unlock for". False positives are typically not a problem - if Face ID's false positive rate is 50,000:1 (not sure if that's still the case or it has been improved over time) you aren't too worried because the odds of a random person just happening to match your face trying to unlock your phone are very low (I say "random" because family/relatives have better odds of a match) False negatives are also not a problem, because you can either try again or use the password if something happened like a bee sting that makes your face temporarily unrecognizable to your phone (happened to a friend of mine)
If you try to use it in a many to many scenario like "is this face now passing the entrance door one of the 200 faces of people banned from the premises" then a false negatives aren't that terrible a problem - you let in someone who shouldn't be let in but that's no worse than not trying to keep them out at all. But false negatives are a disaster. Not only from a PR standpoint, but it hurts the people falsely kept out and tends to be rather racist in outcome since people with darker skin tones are harder for a purely photo based face matching algorithm to differentiate.
The biggest problem is that false negative and false positive are not independent variables. If you find too many banned people are let through you can crank that down to keep more of them out but that will also cause the false positive rate to skyrocket and keep more innocent people out.
Many to many facial matching is simply beyond our capability to do a good job on, despite what the decision makers see on too many movies and TV shows - where they freeze frame on the bad guy who is otherwise being careful to avoid all cameras caught looking sideways at one (or an orbiting satellite lol) they feed it into a facial recognition system (which always has to have the screen display the photos of every person it is trying to compare to) and then finds that one person out of a database that often appears to encompass the whole world!
Violent crime?
“Gang gets away with 100 quids worth of frozen prawns after smashing Iceland security guard around the noggin with a sack of spuds.”
Or
“Gun toting gangsters pistol whip worker at Iceland checkout and make off with fifty quids worth of cheesy puffs”
This has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with identifying frequent shoplifters.
To what end is anyone’s guess as the police won’t do anything.
While you post some amusing scenarios, there is lots of CCTV of people just walking into shops and taking stuff brazenly because they know the shop staff (especially in chains) have been told not to challenge them, and if a staff member does go near them, they get threatened. The thieves know the cops won't turn up quickly, if at all and so can "safely" threaten violence and walk out with their booty. Sometimes they don't even bother with masks. And for whatever reason, almost all CCTV images are too crap to identify faces well enough to get a conviction. I'm assuming the "FRT" stuff is at least using decent quality lenses and image sensors. If the big chains in particular just upgraded their CCTV to 4K or better, they'd probably stand a far better chance of having enough evidence to convict. Yes, actually identifying them is important to so plod knows which door to knock on, but that could be a central cop-shop function (automated with human confirmation) with the retailers just submitting a good still image to start the process off.
I did read the headline as "Iceland introduces faecal recognition" which after being in a few of their stores seemed quite plausible.
I'd assume this will be subject to challenge with facial recognition being a biometric and therefore a form of special category data. Iceland probably doing this on the basis of detecting and preventing crime but it's likely to generate a lot of false positives and therfore a lot of complaints.
They may be banking on the UK regulator continuing to be overwhelmed and completely ineffectual, which in fairness is a reasonable gamble.
Its not functionally different from a security guard looking at a cctv monitor and spotting know shoplifters entering the store. It's just adding a bit of automation.
There are plenty of existing supermarkets with a cctv monitor by the door and a security guard sometimes standing there for show.
Before I get worked up about this and boycott Iceland (again - the owner was a prominent Tory donor, also very anti-Welsh, despite being based in Cymru) could we please have some numbers?
How many violent assaults against staff happen in Iceland stores every week? What is this as a percentage of customer visits? How does it compare to e.g. assaults on staff in Lidl or W H Smiths (R.I.P)
Yes, even one violent assault is too many, but could the money for this system be better spent in other ways? Is it just an excuse to reduce the number of actual human security staff, i.e. a cost-cutting measure.
We need to know.
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