Australia’s favourite outlet of sausage sangas, Bunnings Warehouse, has come under the fire of the Australian Privacy Commissioner, after claims the hardware retail giant has breached privacy laws over three years.
After two years of investigation by the privacy regulator, it concluded that Bunnings had used facial recognition technology on customers without getting proper consent. The case has been described as a landmark, due to how it will impact the way businesses use facial ID tech going forward.
Australian Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind described how the “ethically challenging” technology was used to collect customer’s data without them knowing.
“Individuals who entered the relevant Bunnings stores at the time would not have been aware that facial recognition technology was in use and especially that their sensitive information was being collected, even if briefly,” Kind said in a statement.
The facial ID technology would collect a Bunnings shopper’s “faceprint”, AKA the same kind of biometric data used by Face ID …