Julian Benefield: General Counsel for Foodstuffs North Island said facial recognition trial a success

A six-month facial recognition trial at 25 Foodstuffs North Island stores reduced harm by 16% across the board.

The initiative prevented more than 100 serious in-store incidents, including assault.

General counsel for Foodstuffs North Island Julian Benefield speaks with Heather du Plessis-Allan about this as well as the ‘onion trick’ being used at checkouts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now food Stuff Speaking of crime, food Stuffs reckon that
their facial recognition trial has been a success. Hey, they've
been running this thing for six months, been keeping an
eye on it, running it in twenty five North Island stores.
They reckon, harm was reduced by sixteen percent and it
prevented more than one hundred serious install incidents, including assault.
Now the General Council for Food Stuffs North Island is
Julian Benefield had Julian Hi, Heather, is this about what

(00:22):
you were expecting?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it was ultimately a trial to work out whether
facial recognition technology could help keep our people safer by
preventing repeat offendage from doing more harm. We've seen huge
increases in retail crime and we felt we needed to
do more to keep our people safe. It was a
genuine trial where we wanted to learn whether we could
use the technology safely to do so. We now have

(00:45):
the final report from the Child's Independent evaluator who has
found that facial recognition has reduced serious harm and the
child stores by needstimate of sixteen percent and has strong
public support justifying the use of the technology.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So with the nine who were misidentified, well all of
them trest No.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
So out of firstly, you know, we didn't want any
misidentifications through this process, but unfortunately there were nine situations
where there was a misidentification. Out of the nine, there
were only two customers who are asked to leave the stores.
In all of those situations, we owned our mistake and
acknowledged our mistake and apologist drives as soon as we could.

(01:24):
And in each of those situations, it was a human era.
It was a manual failure and not a failure of
the systems. We've apologized to the customers, and we've looked
very hard the learnings of those situations and implemented training
and improved procedures as a result.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
See one of them, the one that's based on rude
through is going to fight you guys even further. Ah,
did you see that.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, it's probably not something I can comment on at
this point in time, but ultimately we know it was
an unfortunate situation. As has been widely reported previously. We've
acknowledged our mistake and apologized and thought very deeply about
the situation and implemented and let's.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Be honest about it. Let's be honest about it. If
you're going to ask a couple of people to leave
who shouldn't leave. It's probably worth it to stop one
hundred assaults or one hundred incidents, Isn't it like you're
going to have some This is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, And look, this was a genuine trial that we
knew we would learn from. We didn't want any misidentifications,
but to give it context, that was you know, nine
situations out of seventeen hundred and forty two alerts, right,
so we got it right over ninety eight percent at
the time. But we have learned from it and we
will improve.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, what happens next? So are you guys do you
guys get to make the final call on whether you
can actually roll this out across the country or is
that with the Privacy Commissioner.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, So a couple of months ago, at the end
of the trial, we decided to continue using FASH recognition
technology in the twenty five trial stores under the same
privacy and security protocols, and that was based on the
preliminary findings of independent evaluator at that point in time.
At this stage, we're now waiting for the OPCs to
publish their public inquiry into our trial. We want to

(02:56):
hear what they have to say, so we will review
what they have to say about their own cryer inquiry
before deciding on any further use of the technology. But
today we just wanted to be transparent or where we
landed with our final evaluation.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So who gets to make the call as to whether
you roll it out? You or the Privacy Commissioner.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, as a business, we have felt that, you know,
that the harm is so bad that we need to
do more about it. So we as a business made
a decision to continue using So.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
You guys get the final say, you can decide if
you want to do it or not.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, you know, we've decided to use it in the
twenty five trial stores, but we do respect the role
of the OPC. We've worked constructively both before the trial
and then through the trial as they've done their inquiry
and we've done store visits and had you know, constructive conversations,
and we would like to hear what they have to
say as part of the public inquiry before we make
any further decisions.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Okay, what are you going to do about this brown
onion business?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yes, so we are aware of that situation. I mean,
ultimately it is it is theft, but look, we trust
our customers to do the right thing.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Noticed the evidence would suggest that you shouldn't.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Look, we haven't noticed any unusual increase in brown onions
going through self checkouts. We trust our customers to be
honest and most people do understand that theft is theft
and we'll do the right thing.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, all right, Julian listen, thanks very much, really appreciate
your time. That's Julian Benefield, the General Council for Food
Stuffs North Island. For more from Heather Duplessy, Alan Drive,
listen live to news Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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