A trial of live facial recognition technology in supermarkets has been determined successful, although not without concerns.
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster said in a statement released this morning that the trial run by Foodstuffs North Island complied with the Privacy Act. However, he warned improvements would be needed before it could be used permanently or expanded to more stores.
The commissioner launched an inquiry to understand the privacy impact of facial recognition technology, check its compliance with the Privacy Act to look at whether it was effectivel for reducing serious retail crime compared to less privacy-intrusive options.
The trial, which ran from across 25 supermarkets from February 8 to September 7, scanned 225,972,004 faces. There were 1742 alerts, of which 1208 were confirmed matches.
General counsel for Foodstuffs North Island Julian Benefield said the trial demonstrated that facial recognition could help reduce harm while respecting peoples privacy.
Winter’s here, supermarket spying, and TikTok’s new feature. (Source: 1News)
“Our trial prevented more than 100 serious harm incidents, including assaults, with a 16% reduction in harm being demonstrated,” Benefield said.
The inquiry found the level of privacy intrusion was high because every visitors’ face was collected but Foodstuff’s “privacy safeguards used in the trial reduced it to an acceptable level”, the privacy commissioner said.
The main privacy safeguards Foodstuff put into place during the trial were:
- Images that did not result in a positive match were deleted immediately
- The system only identified people who had engaged in seriously harmful behaviour
- Staff were not permitted to add images of children or young people under 18, or people thought to be vulnerable
- There was no sharing of watchlist information between stores
- The threshold that triggered an racial recognition alert was raised from 90% to 92.5% likelihood of the images matching
- Match alerts were verified by two trained staff
- Access to the system and information was restricted to trained authorised staff only
- Images collected were not permitted to be used for training data purposes
- Systems were reviewed and improved during the trial where misidentifications or errors occurred.
‘Many’ privacy concerns
Webster said the trial showed that the technology was effective at reducing harmful behaviour but “it has also shown that there are many things that need to be taken into account”.
Any business considering using the technology needed to ensure it was appropriately set up to comply with the law to avoid “significant privacy concerns” which were “particularly critical” when people needed to access essential services such as supermarkets.
This included “the unnecessary or unfair collection of people’s information, misidentification, technical bias which can reinforce existing inequities and human bias, or the ability to be used for surveillance”.
Webster said that because the facial recognition software was developed overseas, it had not been tested on the New Zealand population and could not be confident that there were no technical bias issues, including potential negative impacts on Māori and Pacific peoples.
Improvements to facial recognition, such as ongoing reviews of the technology and updated system settings, would need to be made before it could be used permanently or expanded to more stores Webster said.
Benefield said that “keeping our teams and customers safe is our top priority”.
“We welcome the feedback on areas for improvement and will carefully consider their recommendations, including the need to monitor accuracy, before we make any decisions about future permanent use.”
“The trial findings will help other businesses to ask the right questions about whether facial recognition technology is necessary and appropriate for them and to understand what they would need to do to set facial recognition technology up and run it in a privacy-protective way.”
‘Extensive measures’ to manage the risks — Consumer
Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy said it was pleasing to see the Privacy Commissioner’s inquiry acknowledge many concerns raised on behalf of consumers who have had their information collected as part of this deployment.
“We will be reading the inquiry report with interest in the coming days, particularly the strength of the evidence put forward to convince the regulator that the technology has prevented in-store harm events before they occurred.”
The organisation emphasised the finding that the use of live facial recognition technology would be justifiable only if privacy risks were successfully managed.
“We note the extensive measures Foodstuffs has needed to put in place to satisfy the Office of the Privacy Commissioner that it can manage the significant privacy risks the technology poses.
“Businesses without Foodstuff’s scale and financial resources may struggle to satisfy the requirements of the Privacy Act in the same way and should take expert advice before proceeding.”
Minister of Justice, Police Commissioner respond
Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith said the Government welcomed the live facial recognition report.
“It found the technology is effective at reducing harmful behaviour towards retailers, especially serious violent incidents.
“This is great news for businesses that are considering using the technology as a means to protect their livelihoods,” he said.
Goldsmith agreed with the report’s assessment that “privacy concerns must be carefully safeguarded”.
“I expect our Ministerial Advisory Group will continue to look at this technology as an option to be used more widely and engage with the sector on it.
“I’ll be encouraging the MAG to take this report into serious consideration.”
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers also welcomed the report, saying such technology was “a valuable tool for fighting crime”.
“I welcome the OPC’s comments about the potential benefits of facial recognition technology and the finding that, in the case of the Foodstuffs trial, it was effective at reducing incidences of serious repeat offending,” he said.
“The value of technology such as facial recognition is that it is fair and accurate. It has an important role to play in policing.”
Chambers said the use of facial recognition technology as a crime prevention tool was a decision for retailers to make for themselves and their businesses.
“Police is supportive of retailers using tools like this to enhance safety for their staff and communities, as long as it is done lawfully and ethically.”
“I welcome the clear guidelines from the OPC on how retailers can use it effectively and the safeguards that are required. It offers useful guidance on whether its use is appropriate, what the privacy risks are and how those can be minimised.”