"Rotorua mother wrongly identified by supermarket as a thief" 21 April 2024

A Rotorua woman was recently wrongly identified as a trespassed thief at a supermarket trialing facial recognition technology — an experience she said left her feeling "humiliated".

Te Ani Solomon was shopping at New World on April 2 when she was singled out and wrongly identified as an offender. It was her birthday.

Solomon said she provided identification and tried to reason with staff, telling them she was not the person who had been trespassed...

...New World's parent company, Foodstuffs, is trialling the technology which compared customers' faces to known offenders in an attempt to prevent shoplifting. The Privacy Commission has previously raised concerns about bias within the technology, which can wrongfully identify women and, particularly, women of colour as someone they are not...

...She added she was now "paranoid about being labelled as a thief" when she does her shopping.

Foodstuffs has apologised to Solomon for what it called a "human error", which Solomon called "stock standard"...

...[A] Foodstuffs spokesperson said the customer "has every right" to be upset.

"We can completely understand her reaction. When we make a mistake we own it and act quickly to put things right, and this morning the store has undergone an operational audit and all appropriate team members will receive further training on required protocols.

"We apologise to the customer and will be contacting her directly to apologise for what has happened."..