Bunnings breached the privacy of potentially hundreds of thousands of Australians through the use of facial recognition technologies in stores to scan

Bunnings breached privacy of customers by using facial recognition, watchdog finds

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2024-11-20 06:00:02

Bunnings breached the privacy of potentially hundreds of thousands of Australians through the use of facial recognition technologies in stores to scan every customer on entry that were aimed at addressing theft or store safety, the Australian privacy commissioner has ruled.

In 2022, it was revealed the hardware chain was one of a number of retailers using facial recognition tech in stores to check the face of every customer entering the store against a database of banned customers.

Facial recognition technology captures images of people’s faces from video cameras – such as CCTV footage – as a unique faceprint that is then stored and can be compared with other faceprints. Bunnings’ system would check every customer entering, and delete the faceprint of those customers not in the database about four milliseconds after checking.

The company placed small signs at the entrance to its stores and advised customers it was for loss prevention or store safety purposes.