Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Bunnings needed to prioritise staff safety here

If you haven’t watched the Bunnings video yet showing its staff being attacked, I recommend you go and watch it - especially if you feel uneasy about the company using CCTV for facial recognition. It’s a compilation of incidents that have occurred in its stores.

The first incident shows a man pulling a knife on a staff member and threatening them so he can walk out the door with two trolleys’ worth of stolen goods. That happened at the Porirua store.

The next incident shows a man holding a box who runs at and knocks over a staff member, while another man behind him tries to steal a second box. That happened at the Takanini store.

The incident I found hardest to watch is a man approaching a staff member at their car in a mostly empty car park. He sidles up to them, then smacks them in the head when they’re not expecting it. He then chases the staff member as they run away and trip because they are so frightened.

Now, let’s be clear about what’s going on here - Bunnings is releasing this video as part of a PR campaign. It’s trying to convince us that it needs to use facial recognition technology in two of its Hamilton stores.

What blows my mind is that it has to go to these lengths. It's been trialling facial recognition since 2018. It's fought its way through a tribunal process in Australia. It's had the Privacy Commissioner here, and the equivalent over the ditch, watching them. It's engaged a Māori digital sovereignty expert. It's released at least two of these video compilations.

And all of this, so far in New Zealand, is just for permission to operate in two stores. Not all stores - just two. Two Hamilton stores.

That’s because there are still enough people worried that Bunnings will take our biometric data and sell it, lose it or wrongly deny entry to some innocent person.

I would have thought this was a slam dunk. I would have thought the answer would be: yes, absolutely - go ahead and use facial recognition if that’s what you need to do to keep your staff safe.

Because sure, something might go wrong one day with the CCTV. But go and watch those videos. Things are going wrong right now.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now if you haven't watched the video yet, this is
the video of Bunnings that Bunnings is released of its
staff being attacked in store. Can I recommend you go
and watch it, especially if you feel weird about Bunnings
using the CCTV for facial recognition. It's a compilation of
what's happened in their stores, just a few incidents that
have happened in their stores. The first incident in the
video is guy pulling a knife on a staff member

(00:21):
and threatening that staff member just so that he can
walk out the door with two trolleys worth of stolen stuff.
This happened in the Pora do A store. The next
incident is a guy with a box in his arms
running at and knocking over a staff member while another
guy behind him tries to steal a second box. That
happened in the Tuckaninny store. The incident I reckon that
I hated watching the most was a man wandering up
to a staff member at their car in a mostly

(00:44):
empty car park, sidling up to the staff member, then
smacking them in the head when they weren't expecting it,
and then chasing them while they ran away and tripped
over because they were so frightened of what was happening
to them. Now, let's be clear about what's going on here.
Bunnings is releasing this video as part of a peace campaign.
It's trying to convince us that they need to be
able to use facial facial technology in two of their

(01:06):
Hamilton stores. But it blows my mind that they have
to go to these lengths. They've been trialing the facial
recognition since twenty eighteen. They've had to fight through a
tribunal process in Australia that had the Privacy Commissioner here
and the equivalent over the ditch watching them. They've engaged
a Mildi digital sovereignty expert. They've released at least two
of these video compilations and all this is four so

(01:27):
far in New Zealand. Is just permission in two stores,
not all the stores, just two stores, two Hamilton stores,
because apparently there are enough of us who are worried
that Bunnings will take our biometric data and sell it
or lose it or maybe wrongly deny entry to some
innocent person. This should I would have thought been a
slam dunk yes to Bunnings. I would have thought absolutely

(01:47):
go ahead and use the facial technician facial recognition technology
if you need to keep your staff safe, because yeah,
something may go wrong one day with the CCTV, but
go and have a look at those videos. Things are
going wrong right now. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to News Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.