News

Surveillance in Australian Woolworths

Woolworths has raised ire for its dubious new improvement of adding surveillance cameras to monitor customers (without notification) using self-checkout in 100 of its Australian stores. Woolworth, which plans a larger rollout to more stores, bills this as a way to prevent “accidental” wrong scans. It also concedes its use monitoring for shoplifting and says the footage has been used for staff training (though promises that people’s faces and keypad punches are blurred to prevent identification). Regardless, customers are not being informed or given a chance to consent so may not like this overall.