Big changes coming to Sainsbury’s stores as facial recognition expands

Sainsbury’s plans to install facial recognition technology in up to 150 more stores before Christmas. This marks a sharp expansion of a surveillance system the supermarket said keeps more than 90% of identified offenders from returning.

The technology is already live in over 55 stores after a successful trial, Sainsbury’s confirmed in its first-quarter trading statement for the 16 weeks to 20 June 2026.

How the system works

The system scans the faces of shoppers entering a store and checks them against a database of people previously flagged for theft or abuse, alerting staff when it finds a match.

Sainsbury’s uses technology from Facewatch, a cloud-based provider also signed up by retailers including Budgens and Sports Direct.

The supermarket said more than 90% of identified offenders have not come back to stores running the technology.

Retailers have increasingly turned to the technology as theft has surged.

Shoplifting offences in England and Wales reached 530,643 in the year to March 2025, a 20% rise and the highest level in more than two decades, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Retailers have also reported more than 2,000 incidents of violence or abuse against staff every day.

Privacy concerns

Civil liberties campaigners have pushed back against the use of widespread facial recoginitiion use in stores.

Big Brother Watch, which is backing legal action against retail use of the technology, has called it disproportionate and warned that it “turns shoppers into suspects”.

The group has cited cases of people wrongly flagged and confronted in stores, and argues the biometric data collected is as sensitive as a passport.

There is currently no dedicated UK legislation setting out comprehensive rules for facial recognition use by retailers.

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