Bunnings defends use of facial recognition after privacy breach

Bunnings says it will seek a review of the privacy commissioner’s determination that it breached the privacy of hundreds of thousands of customers using facial recognition technology (FRT).

The company said it would go to the Administrative Review Tribunal, arguing the technology’s use appropriately balanced privacy with the need to protect staff against violent and organised crime.

Between 2018 and 2021, Bunnings took the data of customers’ faces and compared them against a database of individuals the company had deemed a potential risk due to past crime or violent behaviour.

“We know that some 70 per cent of incidents are caused by the same group of people,” Bunnings managing director Mike Schneider said.

“While we can physically ban them from our stores, with thousands of daily visitors, it is virtually impossible to enforce these bans. FRT provided the fastest and most accurate way of identifying these individuals and quickly removing them from our stores.”

Schneider said stores that participated in the trial had seen a clear reduction in violent incidents.

“We believe that customer privacy was not at risk. The electronic data of the vast majority of people was processed and deleted in 0.00417 seconds – less than the blink of an eye,” he said.

“We believe that in the context of the privacy laws, if we protect even one person from injury or trauma in our stores the use of FRT has been justifiable.”