‘Customer privacy was not at risk’: Bunnings responds after breaching privacy with facial recognition tool
Bunnings has insisted it will fight a ruling that it breached Australians’ privacy with its trial of facial recognition technology (FRT).
In a statement published on Tuesday, privacy commissioner, Carly Kind, found that Bunnings breached Australians’ privacy by “collecting their personal and sensitive information” through FRT, and claimed that the system, via CCTV, likely captured the faces of hundreds of thousands of customers who 63 Bunnings stores in Victoria and New South Wales between November 2018 and November 2021.
While she said FRT can help protect against issues like crime and violent behaviour, “any possible benefits need to be weighed against the impact on privacy rights”.
“Facial recognition technology may have been an efficient and cost effective option available to Bunnings at the time in its well-intentioned efforts to address unlawful activity, which included incidents of violence and aggression. However, just because a technology may be helpful or convenient, does not mean its use is justifiable,” Kind said.
Having watched the video of Bunnings staff being threatened and beaten, I am with Bunnings.
So how is FRT different to a security person with photos of known problem people watching customers entering the store? Who’s benefiting from complaining? Follow the money!
“0.00417 seconds”
got proof?
How do we know that the violent footage used by Bunning’s boss to argue for facial recognition to be legalised, was recorded in Australia? It could have been recorded in NZ or UK. I’m sure it would have made the news in Australia if it had happened here.