Home Bargains
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1976 |
| Legal Structure | Division |
| Industry | Retail |
| Also known as | |
| Official website | https://home.bargains/ |
Home Bargains is a chain of discount stores in the United Kingdom, founded in 1976 by Tom Morris.[1]
Consumer impact summary
[edit | edit source]User privacy
[edit | edit source]Home Bargains operates facial recognition surveillance in its stores through the retail security firm Facewatch, which adds people flagged as suspected shoplifters to a watch-list and circulates their images so that stores are alerted when they enter.[2] In documented cases, customers who were misidentified were ejected from stores without being told why, and the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch says it has been contacted by more than 35 people who complain of being wrongly placed on facial-recognition watch-lists; the group has called for the UK government to ban facial recognition technology from retailers.[2] Home Bargains declined to comment on the 2025 misidentification case, while the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said commercial facial recognition must comply with data protection law and that "no one should find themselves in this situation".[2]
Incidents
[edit | edit source]Woman wrongly accused of theft due to facial recognition error (June 2025)
[edit | edit source]Home Bargains uses surveillance and facial recognition technology from a company called Facewatch. Due to an error, a woman was flagged as a shoplifter after her image was uploaded to the system, which led to her repeatedly being asked to leave stores of the chain without explanation. In one instance, employees surrounded her and demanded she leave.[2]
Man wrongly accused of theft after face scan alert (February 2026)
[edit | edit source]In February 2026, a 67-year-old grandfather from Chester said he felt "physically sick" after facial recognition technology linked him to a theft he said had nothing to do with him, and he was told to leave his local Home Bargains store.[3] Facewatch said he should not have been on the system, that his image and associated record had been permanently removed, and that Home Bargains had completed a full review of the incident.[3] He contacted the police, asked Facewatch and Home Bargains to view the CCTV footage, and called for an apology.[3]
See also
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ "About — TJ Morris". Home Bargains. Archived from the original on 2025-06-05. Retrieved 2026-10-31.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Foran, Kelly; Jahangir, Rumeana (2025-06-14). "Facial recognition error sees woman accused of theft". BBC. Archived from the original on 2025-06-16. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Foran, Kelly; Ferguson, Angela (2026-02-22). "'I was wrongly labelled a thief after face scan'". BBC. Archived from the original on 2026-03-05. Retrieved 2026-10-31.