‘I shouldn’t have to prove I am innocent,’ said man misidentified by Sainsbury’s staff using Facewatch system
A man was ordered to leave a supermarket in London after staff misidentified him using controversial new facial recognition technology.
Warren Rajah was told to abandon his shopping and leave the local store he has been using for 15 years after an “Orwellian” error in a Sainsbury’s in Elephant and Castle.
He said supermarket staff were unable to explain why he was being told to leave, and would only direct him to a QR code leading to the website of the firm Facewatch, which the retailer has hired to run facial recognition in some of its stores. He said when he contacted Facewatch, he was told to send in a picture of himself and a photograph of his passport before the firm confirmed it had no record of him on its database.
“One of the reasons I was angry was because I shouldn’t have to prove I am innocent,” Rajah said. “I shouldn’t have to prove I’m wrongly identified as a criminal.” He described the incident as feeling “quite like Minority Report, Orwellian”.
