Asda has received over 5,000 complaints regarding its live facial recognition technology trial at five of its Greater Manchester stores.

The grocery giant revealed last month that it would be trialling the technology, supplied by FaiceTech, at its Ashton, Chadderton, Eastlands, Harpurhey and Trafford Park supermarkets to help fight the rise in retail crime.

Since then, Asda has been sent around 5,425 emails as part of a campaign by privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch, which labelled the trial as “deeply disproportionate and chilling”, The Grocer reported.

The technology is integrated into the supermarket’s existing CCTV network and works be scanning images and comparing the results to a known list of individuals who have previously committed offences on an Asda site.

If the automated system detects a match, a member of the retailer’s head office security team will conduct a check and feedback to the store in real time.

Big Brother Watch’s senior advocacy officer Madeleine Stone claimed the trial “turns shoppers into suspects, by subjecting customers browsing the supermarket aisles to a series of biometric identity checks”.

Speaking to The Grocer, she said: “Asda is adding customers to a secret watchlist with no due process, meaning people could be blacklisted from their local shop despite being innocent.

“Facial recognition has well-documented issues with accuracy and bias, and has already led to distressing and embarrassing cases of innocent shoppers being publicly branded as shoplifters.”

Big Brother Watch has urged the supermarket to immediately abandon its trial of the technology.

Asda did not respond to the organisation’s complaint when approached by The Grocer.

It comes after Iceland boss Richard Walker said he was “happy” to use facial recognition tech to curb shoplifting in November.

Posting on LinkedIn at the time, the supermarket chair said: “Whilst we don’t yet use it, I will happily trial and use legal, proportionate facial recognition technology as an effective response to the very real threat my colleagues face.”

Asda is not the only retailer to come under fire for its use of facial recognition technology in its store, with Sports Direct receiving criticism back in 2023 when it installed biometric cameras in 27 of its stores to scan the faces of customers and compare them against a database of suspected criminals.

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