Bunnings breached privacy of thousands of shoppers while using facial recognition CCTV in stores, report finds [Video]

Bunnings has been publicly admonished after a report found it breached the privacy of potentially hundreds of thousands of customers.

The hardware giant used facial recognition CCTV to capture faces of shoppers entering 63 stores in NSW and Victoria over a three-year period, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) said.

Privacy commissioner Carly Kind said Bunnings breached The Privacy Act by collecting personal information from customers without consent in the stores between November 2018 and November 2021.

Bunnings would then compare the facial images against past customers who were identified as a risk due to past criminal or violent behaviour.

“Facial recognition technology may have been an efficient and cost-effective option available to Bunnings at the time in its well-intentioned efforts to address unlawful activity, which included incidents of violence and aggression,” Kind said in a statement.

“However, just because a …