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Live Demo & ROI Webinar

Retailers, join our live Facewatch demonstration and learn from leading retailers how Facewatch has worked for them.

Places are limited, please click here to register.

The Grocer reports supermarket bosses saying theft levels are ‘off the charts’ and it’s only going to get worse. According to the Office for National Statistics, 89% of adults in Great Britain reported an increase in their cost of living in August 2022, while household incomes are expected to fall in 2022.

The cost of living crisis is getting worse and it’s predicted that crime will continue to increase. As a retailer, you have a right to protect your business, employees and customers using technologies available to you, providing they are lawful.

Facewatch is fully UKGDPR compliant and proven to reduce crime by discouraging subjects of interest from entering your premises. You can expect substantial reductions in financial loss, typically 50% after 6 months, plus your frontline workers will tell you they feel safer where Facewatch is deployed.

Facewatch know, through interviews with their clients, that traditional security such as CCTV, tagging and human guarding is ineffective and doesn’t deter crime. It only records it happening and can create unnecessary conflict in store when aiming to recover stolen items. There’s no evidence to support these traditional methods reduce crime over time and that’s why more retailers are turning to Facewatch.

Facewatch would like to invite UK retailers to join our live webinar demonstration.

You can see how easily database are created, how SOI’s are detected and how the data is lawfully shared. We’ll be joined by two retailers who have deployed Facewatch across their large estates over the last 3 years. They will share how Facewatch has worked for them, the ROI they’ve delivered and information from their reporting dashboard that they now use to make operational decisions, including footfall monitoring and SOI trend patterns.

Attendees will be invited to submit questions during the webinar and we will attempt to answer as many as possible during the session.

Please click here to register your interest

Webinar: Biometric data and the law

Places are limited, please click here to register.

UK retailers are continuing to see a strong rise in theft and a disturbing trend in abuse and assault of their staff. Traditional crime prevention methods have often tried and failed to prevent such crime and retailers are increasingly turning to facial recognition to alert them of the presence of offenders in their premises before they commit crime.

Our Facewatch Data Protection Officer Dave Sumner, in collaboration with Dean Armstrong QC, will be hosting an invitation-only live webinar for retail lawyers and data protection officers to discuss all things UKGDPR and data protection law specific to deploying facial recognition for crime prevention purposes in retail environments.

Dave is a former senior police officer and NATO advisor who also served as Head of Criminal Justice and Director of Intelligence in the UK. Dean is Head of Chambers at 36 Group and considered to be one of the UK’s leading authorities in data and cyber law.

Dave and Dean will share insight into all aspects of UKGDPR and data protection law relating facial recognition and biometric data in retail crime prevention. The session will cover topics including:

  • The lawfulness of using facial recognition
  • The legal rationale for creating a database
  • How data is acquired, stored and shared
  • Necessity, proportionality and transparency
  • Satisfying the substantial public interest test
  • Data sharing between data controllers

They will share and comment on a recent example of case law – Bridges v South Wales Police, in addition to clarifying the narrative propagated by civil liberty organisations that appears in the UK press.

Attendees will be invited to submit questions before the webinar and we will end the session with an open Q&A (time permitting) attended by a retailer already using Facewatch in their estate.

This promises to be a unique and highly informative event and participants can expect to leave with a greater level of confidence and understanding in how facial recognition can be lawfully deployed in a retail estate, to deter crime and protect employees and customers.

Nick Fisher
Facewatch CEO

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Fraser explains how to access the code and suggests that a principles based approach along with greater levels of adoption to it, could help avoid some of the alarmist and irresponsible reporting that has undermined the very good and increasingly invaluable contribution facial recognition (tech) is making.

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Adoption of the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice is a good place to start with regards to Operating Responsibly as Fraser explains in more detail. Facewatch endorses this and is recognised for operating above and beyond the requirements of UKGDPR but Nick wants to take this even further.

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Fraser explains that establishing clearly defined standards of ethical behaviour would enable businesses to either compete or be a barrier to entry for those that choose not to be ethical. Nick suggests in future it should be the operators of the technology that are accredited, more so than the technology itself.

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Fraser and Nick agree that businesses bringing facial recognition to market need to demonstrate that they take peoples concerns very seriously regarding how their data might be used. Behaving responsibly, transparently and through inviting questions is an imperative if such concerns are to be assuaged and trust established.

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Nick & Fraser discuss the requirements and benefits of aggregating data from multiple sources to solve more crime and the challenges of establishing public trust.

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In the first of seven interviews with Fraser Sampson the UK’s Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner hosted by Nick Fisher CEO of Facewatch, Fraser explains his statutory roles as Commissioner and suggests holding users accountable for deciding when to use facial recognition and new technology as opposed to demonising or banning it, is the way forward.