Asda has firmly denied claims made by a shopper that it uses facial recognition technology at its self-checkouts to to gather customer data for targeted advertising. The denial comes after a video shared on Facebook by a regular customer discussing the issue went viral.
The video was viewed over 360,000 times on Facebook and in it, the woman complains about the new self-checkouts being installed at her local Asda. She shared her "viewpoint" on the fixed cameras, which shows people themselves as they scan their products through.
According to The Sun, the woman said: "What they’re basically happening, and this is my viewpoint, you’ve got a picture of your face, your debit card information and everything you’ve bought. Now, this is for as far as I’m concerned, targeted advertising…But I’ve never given anybody permission to take my data in that way."
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She added: "And under GDPR, unless you’ve given permission, they cannot do it."
However Asda confirmed to Full Fact that this was not the case and that the camera and screens are there purely to deter thieves from stealing. It added that they don't actually store any footage that appears on them, other than the store's traditional CCTV systems.
"We have no technology in our stores that could take an image, store it, and then compare it to other images to spot when a ‘recognised’ face comes into our store," a shop rep told Full Fact.
"The cameras use AI to focus on faces—you might see a green box around the face—but again this footage isn't recorded or stored."
The post shared by the woman has now been flagged as false by Full Fact experts. However it has already been shared more than 8,000 times and has almost 10,000 likes and 1,300 comments.
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