Sainsbury's has suspended the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter. The supermarket has also apologised to the customer, Matt Arnold, who was stopped at a self-service till at the East Dulwich store on August 6.
Customer wrongly flagged by AI
The 46-year-old comedy promoter was buying supplies for a stand-up event hosted next to Dulwich Hamlet Football Club. While waiting for staff to approve an alcohol purchase, he was approached by two management staff who told him he could not be served due to an incident “earlier in the week”.
Mr Arnold told BBC London: “They came over and said I had to leave. The staff member said I'd been identified by the AI, and the cameras had flagged me.
“A shoplifter does not walk around with that much shopping, they don't scan it through, they don't put their Nectar card through.
“But what upset me was thinking this is what the future could be - people just listen to what the machine tells them to do without thinking about the consequences.”
Apology and investigation
After being escorted off the premises, Mr Arnold noticed an alert on an overhead CCTV monitor showing his image with a red circle around his face, indicating he had been flagged by the surveillance system. Sainsbury's head office contacted him the next day to issue a formal apology.
A Sainsbury's spokesperson said: “We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore.
“The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology. Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.”
Trial introduced in 2025
Sainsbury's introduced live facial recognition technology on a trial basis in September 2025, becoming one of the latest major UK retailers to adopt the technology in response to rising shoplifting, violence, and abuse directed at store staff. The initial eight-week pilot was launched at two locations: the Sydenham superstore in London and the Bath Oldfield Sainsbury's Local store.
The system, provided by Facewatch, was designed to identify individuals with a recorded history of theft, aggression, or violence in stores and alert trained staff when such individuals entered the premises. An investigation is being launched by the supermarket.
