Latest News
- Sainsbury’s halts facial recognition at London store after false accusation
- Twelve people killed in tourist bus crash on M3 motorway in Hungary
- EU proposes major tobacco tax overhaul, raising cigarette duties by 139%
- US economy shows signs of recovery as inflation rates begin to stabilize
- Thieves steal Renaissance masterworks from MuMe museum during Ferragosto holiday
- Grizzly bear escapes enclosure at Calgary Zoo before being recaptured
- Trump directs Pentagon to reduce military exercises with South Korea after its refusal to aid Iran’s denuclearisation efforts
- One dead as Hurricane Lala hits Hawaii with 91mph winds and heavy rain
Hunt for Tube hero who gave blind man his shoes after he lost one through the gap The hunt is on find an ‘absolute hero’
Get you up to speed: Sainsbury’s suspends facial recognition after customer accused of shoplifting | News UK
Sainsbury’s has suspended its live facial recognition technology at the East Dulwich store in London following an incident involving Matt Arnold, who was wrongly accused of shoplifting. The suspension comes after Sainsbury’s acknowledged that human error was responsible for the mishap, during which Arnold was stopped while attempting to purchase alcohol.
Sainsbury’s has paused the use of its live facial recognition technology at the East Dulwich store while it investigates the incident involving Matt Arnold, who was misidentified as a shoplifter. The supermarket’s head office acknowledged a human error in handling the alert, reinforcing that the facial recognition system itself has a 99.98% accuracy rate.
Sainsbury’s has suspended its live facial recognition technology at the East Dulwich store following a customer being wrongly accused of shoplifting, with the company stating the incident was due to “human error.” Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch has called for the technology to be scrapped entirely, citing concerns over its implications for customer treatment and accuracy.
What remains unclear — It is not specified how many customers may have been wrongly flagged by the facial recognition technology at Sainsbury’s.
Sainsbury’s halts facial recognition at London store after false accusation
Sainsbury’s has suspended the use of its live facial recognition technology at one of its London stores after a customer was wrongly accused of being a shoplifter.
Matt Arnold, 46, was attempting to buy alcohol at a self-service checkout at the supermarket’s East Dulwich store when he was stopped by two members of management.
After already scanning his items alongside his Nectar loyalty card, Arnold was told that he had been identified by the facial recognition technology in connection with an incident ‘earlier in the week’.
‘They came over and said I had to leave. The staff member said I’d been identified by the AI, and the cameras had flagged me,’ the comedy promoter told BBC London.
‘A shoplifter does not walk around with that much shopping, they don’t scan it through, they don’t put their Nectar card through.’
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Describing it as a ‘terrifying glimpse of the future’, Arnold warned that staff could feel forced to follow automated alerts without using their own judgement.
He added: ‘What upset me was thinking this is what the future could be – people just listen to what the machine tells them to do without thinking about the consequences.’
After being escorted from the store, Arnold later noticed an overhead CCTV screen that displayed his face inside a red circle.
In the days after the incident, Sainsbury’s head office contacted him to apologise, saying there had been a human error.
The supermarket also said it has now paused the technology at the East Dulwich store while it investigates what happened.
A spokesperson said: ‘We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology.
‘Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.’
Technology firm Facewatch, who supply the technology and claims that it has a 99.8% accuracy, has also maintained that its technology was not responsible for the incident.
Is there a facial recognition camera close to you?
‘A correct alert was sent to the retailer, but was subsequently subject to human error in the way it was handled in store,’ a spokesperson said.
However, for Arnold, he claimed that ‘there are more people than me who have been caught out by this’ and mistakes are ‘going to happen’ as staff are ‘not being equipped to implement the AI properly’.
This comes after another Sainsbury’s customer, Warren Rajah, was wrongly challenged for shoplifting following a facial recognition alert in a Sainsbury’s branch in Elephant and Castle.
In June it was revealed by the British Transport Police that out of 330,000 commuters scanned with facial recognition cameras in London, only one person has been flagged as a criminal, and even that was a false alarm.
Silkie Carlo, the director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, has called on Sainsbury’s to scrap the techonology all together after claiming that it is ‘treating customers like criminals’.
‘Serious mistakes like this are inevitable when a national retailer does hundreds of thousands of ID checks indiscriminately with this sinister surveillance tech,’ she told the BBC.
WTX has contacted Sainsbury’s for comment.
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs.
To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
G20 waters down support for Ukraine amid pressure for peace talks
The Tech Titan Who Led His Company From a 68-Square-Foot Jail Cell
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
What to Watch
Amazon prime - TV & Netflix
We give you the best picks to binge on this week.
What to Watch
Love Sports
Get your pizza ordered with the latest Live Sports schedule.
- Good News
Add A Comment
© 2026 WTX News.