Woman wrongly flagged for stealing loo by facial recognition cameras
16/06/2025 | BBC News
A woman was mistakenly identified as a shoplifter by a facial recognition system, leading to her being ejected from two Home Bargains stores in Greater Manchester. Danielle Horan was initially given no explanation for her removal in May and June. She later discovered she had been falsely accused of stealing approximately £10 worth of toilet rolls, leading to her profile being added to a facial recognition watchlist.
Facewatch, the company that provides its facial recognition technology to the retailer, acknowledged the distressing experience and confirmed a review found the items had been paid for. Facewatch also said that Home Bargains had undertaken additional staff training and that the involved branches were temporarily suspended from using the Facewatch system.
In a statement, digital rights group Big Brother Watch (BBW) stated that it had received over 35 complaints from individuals claiming that they had been wrongly flagged by facial recognition technology, arguing that the technology undermines the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and can have serious impacts on individuals.
The news comes after a 62-year-old woman had been wrongly accused of stealing a 39p pack of paracetamol from another Home Bargains store.
What is this page?
You are reading a summary article on the Privacy Newsfeed, a free resource for DPOs and other professionals with privacy or data protection responsibilities helping them stay informed of industry news all in one place. The information here is a brief snippet relating to a single piece of original content or several articles about a common topic or thread. The main contributor is listed in the top left-hand corner, just beneath the article title.
The Privacy Newsfeed monitors over 300 global publications, of which more than 6,250 summary articles have been posted to the online archive dating back to the beginning of 2020. A weekly roundup is available by email every Friday.