{"id":104606,"date":"2025-10-28T04:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T04:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104606\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T04:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T04:58:08","slug":"foodstuffs-launches-three%e2%80%91month-facial-recognition-trial-across-christchurch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104606\/","title":{"rendered":"Foodstuffs launches three\u2011month facial recognition trial across Christchurch"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the system detects a match, it sends an alert, and two trained team members manually review it to decide whether it is a match and what response is appropriate. <\/p>\n

Next steps may include observing the person, contacting the police, or intervening to ask them to leave the store.<\/p>\n

The system is calibrated to only send an alert when it detects a match with an accuracy level of at least 92.5%. <\/p>\n

No images of people under the age of 18 or vulnerable people are entered into the watchlist.<\/p>\n

Foodstuffs said only images that are matched with a person on the watchlist are stored.<\/p>\n

All other images that do not match will be instantly deleted. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Foodstuffs has introduced facial recognition. <\/p>\n

Between March and September 2024 Foodstuffs North Island trialled facial recognition<\/a> across 25 of its New World and Pak\u2019nSave stores. <\/p>\n

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner\u2019s public inquiry into the trial found it had met privacy standards. <\/p>\n

Facial recognition continued to be used in 25 North Island supermarkets, with other retailers now following suit.<\/p>\n

General manager of retail Tim Donaldson said Foodstuffs South Island had chosen to trial the technology after stores had been repeatedly targeted \u201cwith serious, threatening behaviour\u201d – even after people were trespassed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis trial will help us understand if facial recognition can help our teams identify repeat offenders so we can act quickly to prevent them causing more harm,\u201d Donaldson said. <\/p>\n

Foodstuffs South Island said it had engaged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and completed a Privacy Impact Assessment. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise some people may have questions about the use of FR,\u201d Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve published clear information on our website about how the system works and the safeguards we\u2019ve put in place, and are happy to answer any questions about how [facial recognition] will be used in our trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the three-month trial results will be carefully reviewed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the system detects a match, it sends an alert, and two trained team members manually review it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2840,138,4487,103,58925,2514,1739,111,139,69,31340,1240,653,145,1529,9834,54,1533],"class_list":["post-104606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-across","tag-business","tag-christchurch","tag-facial","tag-foodstuffs","tag-island","tag-launches","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-recognition","tag-south","tag-stores","tag-technology","tag-three","tag-threemonth","tag-trial","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}