I just wanted to share something I didn’t know until today. I was in Tesco at the self checkout and noticed that Saturday staff were being less customer focused than usual. There were three of them next to my checkout having a gossip and ignoring customers waving at them for help.
Anyway, the main reason this is of interest is that they were gossiping about a colleague and how she was told off for not wearing her bodycam.
Now hearing that rang an alarm in my head. I spoke to another member of staff and she said that most of the big supermarkets are now doing this for the safety of staff. I looked in Sainsbury and sure enough they wear a cam on a lanyard. Looking online it seems that they may have been wearing these devices since about 2020.
Am I the only one that didn’t know?
Apparently it’s not illegal to wear a cam but there are various GDPR regulations and you need a licence (apparently)
I’m wondering whether they now have cameras in the toilets too. It seems that you cannot move without being filmed or listened to by some device or other. With AI you can be tracked and monitored with facial recognition so there will be a dossier on every single citizen.
Azz I was just surprised that this has been kept so quiet. I can’t even see much about it in news reports. when I asked the lady I spoke to she said it wasn’t switched on. Which makes no sense.
Bunnings has just won a case before the Administrative Review Tribunal over its use of AI and cameras in store
The Administrative Review Tribunal has found that Bunnings was reasonably entitled to use AI facial recognition technology to combat crime and staff abuse in its stores.
The hardware giant did not breach privacy laws in scanning customers’ faces, but could have done more to notify them of the data collection, the tribunal said.
Australia’s Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind determined in 2024 that Bunnings breached privacy laws by scanning hundreds of thousands of customers’ faces without their proper consent. The Tribunal has reversed that decision.
Gary Mortimer, a professor of retail and consumer behaviour at the Queensland University of Technology, said he supported the administrative tribunal’s ruling.
“It’s incumbent on retailers to not just keep their workers safe, but also other customers safe, and also protect their inventory from loss and theft,” he said.
“They should be looking at alternative ways to do that and using high-tech, innovative technology, computer vision [and] AI systems is the way of the future.”
I’m tempted to wear a body cam when I have to deal with a cashier. It’s pretty rare that I do, though, since I buy almost everything online. It’s just when purchasing an occasional burger or burrito that I actually deal with somebody in person.
I’ve not see it here Annie - they have cameras everywhere not sure why they need staff wearing them too… maybe it is more about keeping check on staff?
Azz they are difficult to spot, it’s not obvious they are cameras. I would never have noticed they were there unless I had overheard the staff gossip and asked the questions. It’s funny but the member of staff I spoke to wasn’t involved in the gossip group, but wanted to know what they said about the bodycam. Perhaps she was more senior.
If they are being told off about not wearing them then perhaps there is staff suspicion and unhappiness that they are also being monitored closely. I’m sure that kind of surveillance would be tempting for such employers!
exactly - people should be made aware that their private conversations with staff are being filmed! They should be clear whether the cameras are on or off. Where is the data kept?!
I’m consistently astonished by how some embrace such an intrusion into privacy. I can understand how stores may think this is a good thing, but the reality is that criminals around the UK barge in and take whatever they like despite the bodycams and are never caught or prosecuted. So who are the cameras protecting? Are they just gathering facial recognition data?
They have other cameras recording everything, but this records the conversations too and facial expressions.
I can understand security staff having a bodycam because they get involved in physical altercations where they have to explain and defend their actions as they may be faced with assault charges, but not ordinary staff. I’ve seen several instances of security guards being totally unnecessarily heavy-handed over the years where they should have been charged with assault. I even had to give a witness statement to police because I mentioned my shock to someone at a supermarket petrol station as a guard kicked a youth from behind when he was already walking away, and the man I spoke to gave my licence plate to police who then turned up at the house! Cheeky busybody. I’ve also seen a security guard roughly throwing out a 50 something woman shoplifter who clearly didn’t need that kind of force as she was only a fraction of his size. She was just poor and hungry.
they have cameras at the checkout in Sainsbury and other places, but they do not record sound. I know this because I had to go through the footage with staff once when I felt I had been overcharged for something. It’s clear to customers that they are being recorded, that’s not the case with the bodycams.
You start to wonder whether it’s better to go to independent supermarkets.
When making deliveries to houses, several times a day I am told by a number of doorbells (by an American lady) that, “you are currently being recorded”, when I can be bothered I speak back and say “Take that up with my Agent”
It seems likely that monitoring staff is a “happy” by-product of such devices. I’ve been astonished at the monitoring of employees in today’s work place. Every key stroke is monitored, log in and out times, system usage, internet usage, activities, cameras in offices - all recorded.
Surprisingly little in mainstream news about this. There were some articles in 2023 saying staff were being “offered” bodycams. But based on what I witnessed yesterday, they are now enforced and compulsory. They are keeping this quiet, which is creepy to say the least. No wonder supermarket staff look so fed up these days.
I had not noticed this! Yes I expect it at the tills or wider in the stores, staff wearing bodycams is a bit weird. I guess to protect the store from claims. But it is invasive?
