Asda denies claims ‘thousands’ of complaints were made over facial recognition pilot

Asda has denied claims about being sent “thousands” of complaints about its facial recognition trial, saying it has only received 89.

The supermarket chain came under fire from privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch, which claimed Asda’s facial recognition trial at five of its Greater Manchester Stores had amassed over 5,000 complaints from shoppers.

The two-month trial went live in March and is designed to scan facial images and compare the results to a list of known individuals who have previously engaged in criminal activity at one of the retailer’s sites.

If a match is found by the automated system, a member of the head office security team can then conduct a remote check and provide feedback to the store in real time.

Following the trial, Big Brother Watch said it called upon its 75,000 subscribers to complain to Asda about its use of the technology, describing it “Orwellian” and “dangerous” over its use of customers’ biometric data.

However, the grocery giant has now fired back, rejecting Big Brother Watch claims and confirming to Retail Gazette’s sister publication Grocery Gazette that it has only received 89 emails through any of its official email channels.

“Like all retailers, our stores are subject to increasing and unacceptable levels of retail crime and on average, four Asda colleagues were assaulted at work every day last year,” said an Asda spokesperson.

“We have launched this trial in five stores for a limited period to assess how it can keep colleagues and customers safe. This trial uses Asda’s existing CCTV system and fully complies with all data protection regulations.”

Despite the supermarket’s comments, Big Brother Watch maintains it has used email provider Send Layer to track how many emails have been sent to the ‘@asda.co.uk’ email domain, arguing that the domain also redirects to the supermarket’s ‘@asda.uk’ domain.

Using this data, it says as of 23 April its analytics shows 5,425 people had sent an email.

The pressure group said it was “confident” the retailer received thousands of complaints, adding that the hashtag #StopAsdaSpying was trending on social media platform X in the UK, while it also received 190 donations to for its ‘Anti-Asda facial recognition’ campaign in the first day.

It has not been confirmed by either party whether the emails may have been sent to an unmonitored inbox, or flagged as ‘spam’, but the grocery retailer has reiterated its teams have not received the emails across any of its channels.

This dispute is not the first time a retailer has been caught in a crossfire from campaigners over the use of facial recognition technology.

In 2022, Southern Co-op facial recognition trial in partnership with tech provider FaceWatch was described as “unlawful” by Big Brother Watch.

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