Statement from a Kmart Spokesperson

At Kmart we are trialling facial recognition in a small number of stores for the limited purposes of safety and loss prevention (such as reducing refund fraud).

We are committed to keeping personal information private and protected in compliance with privacy law.

We make our customers aware of facial recognition through our conditions of entry signage in participating stores and through our Kmart privacy policy

Statement from Simon McDowell, Bunnings Chief Operating Officer:

We are disappointed by CHOICE’s inaccurate characterisation of Bunnings’ use of facial recognition technology in selected stores.  This technology is used solely to keep team and customers safe and prevent unlawful activity in our stores, which is consistent with the Privacy Act.

In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of challenging interactions our team have had to handle in our stores and this technology is an important tool in helping us to prevent repeat abuse and threatening behaviour towards our team and customers.

There are strict controls around the use of the technology which can only be accessed by specially trained team.  This technology is not used for marketing, consumer behaviour tracking, and images of children are never enrolled.

We let customers know if the technology is in use through signage at our store entrances and also in our privacy policy, which is available via the homepage of our website.

Statement from The Good Guys

The Good Guys is trialling in two stores the use of a new CCTV system that can use face and feature recognition technology. This technology is used solely for the purposes of loss prevention and the safety of our store team members and customers. We let our customers know the technology is in use in these two stores through our store entrance signage, and in our privacy policy that is available on our website.