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If you work in retail, you put up with a lot. If it’s not scumbags openly thieving with impunity, it’s having to deal with customers outraged by the few measures retailers have resorted to in order to deal with the scumbags.
One such measure hardware giant Bunnings tested was facial recognition technology, designed to detect when known criminals were in stores. Although Bunnings in no way broke the law and data was automatically deleted within an average of 4.17 milliseconds, the typical government busybody that seems to be mostly dedicated to protecting the ‘rights’ of scumbags quickly pounced.
Bunnings in 2024 was found by Australia’s privacy commissioner Carly Kind to have breached privacy laws as it scanned customers’ faces without their proper consent.
In a protracted and costly case, the Administrative Review Tribunal ruled the hardware chain was entitled to use facial recognition technology in its bid to combat the “real” issue of crime against its staff and property […]
The privacy commissioner has 28 days to appeal to the Federal Court, and if it takes this route will be required to budget for a costly court case that could run into the millions of dollars.
All that time and money just so criminals can flog toolkits to their hearts’ content. All the privacy commissioner had to do was issue a simple request to publicly notify customers the tech was in operation.
Retailers are fast running out of options to deal with out-of-control theft in Victoria. Not to mention violence.
Retailers operating in Victoria suffered the biggest increase in threats and violence last year of any Eastern state according to new data that exposes the severity of the risk to businesses from the Allan government’s crime problem.
Australia’s $444bn retail sector suffered a 26 per cent jump in threatening behaviour compared to 2024, with store violence up 17 per cent and the use of weapons up 10 per cent. Knives and blades make up more than half of all threats with a weapon, crime intelligence technology firm Auror found.
This was worse in Victoria, where incidents with a weapon were up 24 per cent, violent events up 29 per cent, and threats spiked 43 per cent.
It’s almost like criminals simply ignore things like machete bans.
The danger to employees and customers vindicates last week’s tribunal decision overturning a privacy commissioner ruling in favour of Bunnings, which was found to have justifiably used in-store facial recognition technology.
Victoria’s outbreak of theft, organised crime and violence against the retail sector has long been highlighted by industry leaders, and is well ahead of similar criminal acts in New South Wales and Queensland, according to the Auror figures.
The facial recognition technology is particularly valuable when it’s a small cohort of recidivist offenders responsible for most of the theft and violence.
The Auror data shows the top 10 per cent of offenders are responsible for more than 60 per cent of retail crime, and repeat offenders are up to four times more likely to be violent.
Other states worsened in 2025, too. New South Wales and Queensland reported growth in violent events of 17 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, and growth in threats of 25 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.
But weaponised incidents in New South Wales fell six per cent, and in Queensland rose three per cent.
The urgency of the problem compelled the CEOs of Woolworths, Coles, Kmart, Bunnings, Officeworks, JB Hi-Fi, Ikea, 7-Eleven and Cotton On to complain publicly.
Coles CEO Leah Weckert memorably revealed that criminals were pinching meat from her supermarkets to sell to the restaurant trade for a quick profit. The former boss of Super Retail, owner of Rebel and Supercheap Auto, said crime rates were “out of control” and on an “industrial level” as organised gangs stole expensive sports equipment to resell via online marketplaces.
‘Gangs’ of no particular description, of course.
Although I wait with bated breath for the Human Rights Commission to step in, screeching that high-tech measures to catch recidivist criminals are ‘racist’. The facial recognition software is programmed on pattern recognition, so of course it’s ‘racist’.
