Supermarket retailer Sainsbury's has suspended its use of live facial recognition technology at a London branch after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and asked to leave the store.

Matt Arnold was paying for his items at a self-service till in East Dulwich when he was stopped by management, whilst waiting for a staff member to approve an alcohol purchase.

Having already scanned his items, as well as his Nectar loyalty card, Arnold said he was approached by two members of management staff and told he could not be served due to an incident "earlier in the week".

He described the incident as "a terrifiyng glimpse of the future" and warned that retail surveillance technology risks embarassing customers and creating an environment where staff feel compelled to follow automated alerts, rather than apply logic to the situation.

Sainsbury's apologised to Mr Arnold and claimed the mistake was caused by human error. Critics are calling for the technology to be scapped.

Previous facial recognition errors at Sainsbury’s and other retailers 

The technology used by the retailer is supplied by a a firm called Facewatch and it's not the first incident involving an innocent shopper being challenged.

In September 2025, a customer was forced to leave a Sainsbury's branch in Elephant & Castle after being wrongly flagged. Facewatch has also been involved in similar cases with other retail partners, including Home Bargains in 2024 and B&M last year.

Sainsbury’s blames human error for false identification 

A spokesperson from Sainsbury's coinfirmed the technology has been paused while an investigation takes place but defended the wider usage of the system, citing escalating violence against retail workers. Recent British Retail Consortium figures show 1,600 daily incidents of violence and abuse against shopworkers nationwide, a significant increase from 455 a day in 2020.

They said: "Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.

"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."

A Facewatch spokesperson doubled down on the human error blame factor, adding: "A correct alert was sent to the retailer, but was subsequently subject to human error in the way it was handled in store."