British supermarket chain Asda kicked off a live facial recognition trial in five of its stores on Monday in an attempt to increase security amid a rise in retail crime. The company says it recorded approximately 1,400 assaults on its staff last year.
The facial recognition system is supplied by UK-based startup FaiceTech. Asda plans to deploy the technology over the next two months in five of its stores in the Greater Manchester area.
“The rise in shoplifting and threats and violence against shopworkers in recent years is unacceptable and as a responsible retailer we have to look at all options to reduce the number of offenses committed in our stores and protect our colleagues,” says Liz Evans, chief commercial officer for Non-food and Retail at Asda.
The system will be integrated into the store’s existing CCTV networks and will scan images of shoppers against a watchlist of previous offenders compiled by Asda. If there is no match, the images and the biometric templates collected are deleted immediately and permanently.
The Manchester-headquartered company claims that its edge-based live facial recognition system FaiceAlert has a 99.992 percent matching accuracy when matching at 1:N. FaiceTech also promises robust data privacy measures, including full compliance with the UK GDPR and the Privacy by Design approach.
Other offerings from the firm include retrospective facial recognition solution FaiceMatch, access control product FaiceAccess and Axis On-Edge Camera solutions.
Article Topics
biometrics | cctv | criminal ID | face biometrics | FaiceTech | retail biometrics | UK | video surveillance