A Rotorua woman was recently wrongly identified as a trespassed thief at a supermarket trialing facial recognition technology — an experience she said left her feeling "humiliated".
Te Ani Solomon was shopping at New World on April 2 when she was singled out and wrongly identified as an offender. It was her birthday.
Solomon said she provided identification and tried to reason with staff, telling them she was not the person who had been trespassed.
"It didn't seem to change their mind which was already made up based on what they saw."
New World's parent company, Foodstuffs, is trialling the technology which compared customers' faces to known offenders in an attempt to prevent shoplifting.
The Privacy Commission has previously raised concerns about bias within the technology, which can wrongfully identify women and, particularly, women of colour as someone they are not.
When asked by Breakfast whether she thought race was a factor in her wrongful identification, Solomon said it was a "huge factor".
"Unfortunately, it will be the experience of many Kiwis if we don't have some rules and regulations around this [technology]."
Solomon added, in her opinion, she doesn't believe companies should be using the technology due to its potential bias.
"It's made me, unfortunately, explain to my son what racism is."
She added she was now "paranoid about being labelled as a thief" when she does her shopping.
Foodstuffs has apologised to Solomon for what it called a "human error", which Solomon called "stock standard".
"[It's] ironic they blame human error for an AI piece of technology knowing it will have false positives and errors across the board."
Concerns from the Privacy Commissioner
Privacy Commissioner Micheal Webster said the technology being trialled has issues with bias and false matches.
Webster said he would be "concerned" for Māori, Pasifika and Indian shoppers if the technology became permanent in Foodstuffs supermarkets.
He is currently undergoing an inquiry into the trial at the company, seeing whether there were mismatches, and whether they were making people upset.
"[We] need to ensure it doesn't lead to unfair treatment of people of colour in New Zealand."
In a statement to Breakfast, a Foodstuffs spokesperson said the customer "has every right" to be upset.
"We can completely understand her reaction. When we make a mistake we own it and act quickly to put things right, and this morning the store has undergone an operational audit and all appropriate team members will receive further training on required protocols.
"We apologise to the customer and will be contacting her directly to apologise for what has happened."
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