Ashraf said the staff member told him that they had the right to check bags.<\/p>\n
\u201cI, me and my son, [were] both offended and embarrassed because [there were] so many people on the weekend just watching,\u201d Ashraf said.<\/p>\n
He added that some of his son\u2019s schoolmates were present. He said his son felt \u201chumiliated\u201d when he went back to school.<\/p>\n
Ashraf described bystanders at the incident looking at him as if he were a \u201cthief or an animal at a zoo\u201d.<\/p>\n
So this time, he said he decided to take the matter to the media and formally complain to Pak\u2019nSave.<\/p>\n
In an email to Ashraf, seen by RNZ, the supermarket apologised and offered him a $100 Pak\u2019nSave gift card. But Ashraf turned it down.<\/p>\n
A Foodstuffs North Island spokesperson provided a statement to RNZ, apologising for the incident and the distress caused.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur review confirmed that staff acted outside our policy.<\/p>\n
Chris Quin, the head of Foodstuffs. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n
\u201cOur teams can request to see a bag, but they do not have the right to search it, and any check must only occur with the customer\u2019s consent and with the customer presenting the contents themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The supermarket said it reinforced policies and training around customer rights and privacy.<\/p>\n
It said it took the incident seriously and investigated accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect all customers to be treated with respect at all times, and on this occasion we fell short.\u201d<\/p>\n
The apology was not enough for Ashraf, who said he wanted an apology from the head of Pak\u2019nSave for himself and his son, as well as monetary compensation.<\/p>\n
He declined to tell RNZ the amount he was seeking.<\/p>\n
He wrote to Chris Quin, the head of Foodstuffs, which owns Pak\u2019nSave.<\/p>\n
In an email seen by RNZ, Quin replied that Ashraf had been offered the gift card as a goodwill gesture and that financial compensation was not appropriate in this situation.<\/p>\n
Quin said the incident had been reviewed and steps had been taken to ensure it did not happen again.<\/p>\n
Barrister Simon Shamy said retail staff do not have the right to search customers\u2019 personal property without permission.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re asked to search your bag, you can refuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they try to use force, they\u2019re committing a criminal assault and you may also have a civil claim against them for compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said unauthorised searches could be considered as infringing on a person\u2019s right to privacy.<\/p>\n
As a result, complaints could be made to the Human Rights Commission or to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, he said.<\/p>\n
Barrister Marie Taylor-Cyphers said complaints to the Privacy Commissioner and Ombudsman would most likely end in an apology rather than compensation.<\/p>\n
She said one remedy would be suing the supermarket, but this would be prohibitively expensive for most.<\/p>\n
Ashraf told RNZ he had lodged a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner told RNZ that having your bag searched without permission may be a breach of privacy \u2013 depending on the circumstances.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said a shop owner or employee could request to search a customer\u2019s bag, ask the customer to leave their bag outside, or require someone to leave the store \u2013 but not the right to search a bag.<\/p>\n
In order for it to breach privacy, the spokesperson said, the shop would have to collect personal information from the bag search.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf an agency (in this case the supermarket) takes a quick look to check you don\u2019t have a stolen item in a backpack and then lets you go, then that would struggle to be a genuine collection of personal information. They still really don\u2019t know who you are or anything about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it could be argued that \u201cthe fact of whether or not you\u2019ve stolen something is personal information, but often the shop would have a lawful purpose to check that\u201d.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the commissioner would often decline to investigate complaints like these, as a breach of privacy had often not occurred or \u201cbecause the person hadn\u2019t suffered harm that would meet the threshold in the Privacy Act\u201d.<\/p>\n
But they added: \u201cIf a shop had no signage about their practices, searched your whole bag, photographed your licence or took a copy of your passport while they were in there, and\/or did the search in an unfair way (ie in front of other customers), then it would be a privacy law issue and we might look at the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ashraf said the staff member told him that they had the right to check bags. \u201cI, me and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,179899,43507,53893,4381,179900,111,43,139,69,27952,26584,11929,1339],"class_list":["post-526320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-anya","tag-apologises","tag-bag","tag-customers","tag-fielding","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paknsave","tag-permission","tag-searching","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526320","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=526320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}