Matt Arnold scanned his groceries and a Nectar card, then an AI camera flagged him as a shoplifter and staff tried to escort him out

Sainsbury’s has paused use of its Facewatch live facial recognition system at its East Dulwich store after a customer was wrongly flagged as a shoplifter and told to leave. Matt Arnold, a 46-year-old comedy promoter, was buying supplies for a show at Dulwich Hamlet Football Club when two store managers approached him at a self-service checkout. As reported by The Guardian, Arnold had already scanned his items and Nectar card before staff informed him he could not be served over an earlier incident.

The two staff members told him he could not be served due to an alleged earlier incident and attempted to escort him from the store. Arnold chose to walk out on his own to preserve his dignity, and the managers ultimately agreed. “I was embarrassed, mortified even, and felt quite humiliated and powerless,” Arnold said.

As he left, Arnold spotted an overhead CCTV monitor displaying a red circle around his face, confirming the system had flagged him. He asked staff to hold his shopping in the trolley so a colleague could pay for it and collect the items shortly after, and staff agreed despite appearing confused by the request.

Sainsbury’s says a person made the mistake, not the machine

Sainsbury’s has apologized to Arnold and maintains the error was down to staff, not the Facewatch software itself. “The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology,” a company spokesperson said. Facewatch similarly defended its system, saying the alert it generated was accurate and that the mishandling occurred only after it reached staff.

Arnold has since called for the technology to be switched off across all Sainsbury’s stores, not just the East Dulwich branch, since the system runs on a shared, centralized database. He said he is concerned about the effect on vulnerable shoppers, including people with anxiety or younger customers who may not feel confident challenging an accusation.

This is not the first time Facewatch’s software has drawn scrutiny. A shopper named Warren Rajah was wrongly ordered out of a store in Elephant and Castle in September 2025 after the same system misidentified him, and similar issues have surfaced at other retailers including B&M and Home Bargains. Facial recognition missteps have also spread beyond retail settings, amid a wrongful arrest case in which a software engineer was mistakenly linked to a burglary he had no connection to.

As detailed by BiometricUpdate, Sainsbury’s has been expanding its use of the technology despite the recurring errors. The retailer had Facewatch live in more than 55 stores as of July, with plans to add roughly 150 more locations before Christmas. The company points to figures from the British Retail Consortium showing shop workers face 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse daily.

Facewatch says its network has helped prevent an estimated £64 million in theft over the past 12 months and sent more than 55,000 real-time alerts to retailers in May alone. Errors involving the technology are not limited to the UK either, amid a Tennessee grandmother’s wrongful jailing after a separate AI system linked her to a crime in a state she had never visited.

The Facewatch system remains switched off at the East Dulwich store while staff undergo additional training and the incident stays under review.