Supermarket giant Coles last month reported its results for the 2023 financial year. The chain managed to make $1 billion in profit, amid a cost of living crisis hitting nearly everyone you know in some way or another. Amid such an economically uncertain time for many Aussies, supermarket price-gauging reports are also hard to ignore (I personally remember when a bag of shredded cheese wasn’t $10, and that isn’t an anecdote from my childhood). It’s with all of that context that news from Coles today that it was trialling body-worn cameras has us feeling a bit angry.
Coles, per 9News, is trialling the use of body-worn cameras by its staff. The move, according to Coles, is that body-worn cameras will be used to “combat theft and violence”. Firstly, yes, absolutely, protect staff – they should not cop any sort of abuse for simply doing their job. If the cameras allow them to witness any sort of abusive behaviour while not getting involved in a confrontation, fabulous, if the mere idea of them being able to record such behaviour deters it from starting in the first place, even better. But secondly, and by no means are we condoning shoplifting, it’s just a bit on the nose that Coles is targeting people who are struggling enough to shoplift, especially when its annual profit is more money than many of us could even fathom. There’s a third one here – a lot of kids work at supermarkets after school. Arming kids with such a tech could see them be targetted. There’s a lot going on here, no matter which way you slice it.
The body cameras, per 9News, will be deployed to 30 supermarkets “under threat of theft and violence” in Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Western Australia. Locations aren’t known at this stage, but one can only assume it won’t be Toorak or Brighton Coles.
Per the report, a Coles spokesperson said the supermarket giant actually has a “range of security measures in place to reduce theft from our stores including security personnel and surveillance technologies such as CCTV”. They were quoted by 9News as also saying the body-worn cameras only start recording once activated. The footage will be sent back to management.
We weren’t aware so much unreported violence went on at Coles’ stores to warrant such a move, but here we are.
In mid-June 2022, we reported that Kmart, Bunnings Warehouse and The Good Guys were all using facial recognition technology in-store after consumer advocacy group Choice revealed the companies were all recording customers’ faceprints, mostly without their knowledge. Australia’s privacy commissioner intervened, opening an investigation into the practice and reminding retailers they have an obligation to make sure everything they do in this space is undertaken in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act. And per Yahoo! News, body cams have also been trialled by Woolworths, with the supermarket rolling out its own program in 2021, trialling cameras at self-checkouts to try to catch any customers trying to steal.
We’ve reached out to Coles for further comment and will update this post when we hear back.
Image: iStock