Matt Barker: Scarlatti Director and Trial Evaluator on the benefits vs risks to facial recognition tech in supermarkets

There’s a view the benefits of facial recognition tech in supermarkets outweighs potential risks. 

Data analyst firm Scarlatti has found a trial of the new technology at 25 Foodstuffs North Island supermarkets reduced harm by 16%. 

Security were alerted to offenders early, and could intervene to prevent harm from escalating. 

Scarlatti Director and Trial Evaluator Adam Barker told Mike Hosking there was a balance to be struck around privacy impacts. 

He says they found the 16% reduction in harm was more than enough to justify the use of the tech in the views of the public. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Foodstuff's facial recognition trial that's worked out well. They tell us.

(00:03):
Of the twenty five North Island stores that took part,
harm was reduced by sixteen percent. Thought the technology played
a part in preventing more than one hundred serious install incidents,
and we're talking things like assault. The evaluator from Skelatia Analytics,
the firm director is Adam Barker, who's with us. Adam
morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
What your thought versus what you got? Was it the
same thing? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It was pretty close. We anticipated about well, we were
hope you were at least a twenty percent production and
harm and what we have ended up with as a
sixteen percent production and harm.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And so where do you go from here? I mean,
if everyone agrees at work so more please? Is that
how it works?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well? From here? Our report has gone to food Stuff's
and then Food Stuffs and Turn has passed it on
to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. It's currently in
the hands of the Privacy Commissioner now to make some
decisions around where they would like to try and see
facial recognition go next.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is there a problem with it? I mean, how many
people actually mined about having their face photographed, sword, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Not many, but I don't think that's There is clearly
a balance that does need to be struck between privacy
impacts and the harm reduction that occurs. And one of
the important things that we tried to do in our
work was to assess the balance between those different impacts
and to understand what the public thought. And what we
found in that work was that the sixteen percent reduction

(01:29):
is more than enough to justify the privacy impacts in
the view of most of the public.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Is the way of the future.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, I guess I certainly feel like it should be
part of the mix of things that had done in
the future.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Good stuff, you go, well, Adam, appreciate it very much.
Adam Barker, Sclety, Director Trial Evaluator. If it works, it works.
Can't argue with that, can you? For more from the
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