{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0432","record_version":1,"title":"Customer misidentified by Sainsbury's facial recognition system","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":48.0,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":3.0,"completeness":4.48,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: BBC · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":1,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: BBC · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"ed5a68959a1772c32fbd5097ba20bbc1fa804460917820cbfdb544214b2a725d"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"Facewatch","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-02-05","incident_class":"operational_error","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"Sainsbury's rolled out Facewatch facial recognition in six London stores, where cameras compare shoppers' faces against a database of recorded offenders and alert store managers to verify matches. At its Elephant and Castle store, staff approached a customer, Warren Rajah, and told him to leave after wrongly identifying him as a flagged offender. Sainsbury's said the error was in human verification, not the technology. Facewatch later confirmed Rajah was not on its database. To verify this, Rajah had to send a copy of his passport and a photo. Sainsbury's apologised and offered him a £75 voucher, and said management at the store would receive additional training.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":"oversight","root_cause_detail":"Error at the second stage of human verification","failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":"deployer","adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":"Additional training for management at the Elephant and Castle store","precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"minor","severity_because":"Test: contained to one deployer (one store) with one person affected; the sources state no count of other affected parties","harm_class":[],"affected_description":"One customer, Warren Rajah, at one Sainsbury's store in Elephant and Castle, London","protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lxdn4w2g3o","publisher":"BBC","date":"2026-02-05","type":"press","title":"Facial recognition error: Customer misidentified by Sainsbury's - BBC","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"independent"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.developer":"C","context.country":"C","context.industry":"C","event.root_cause":"C","event.root_cause_detail":"C","event.responsible_party":"C","event.remediation":"C","impact.affected_description":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.developer":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Facewatch describes itself as \"the UK's leading facial recognition company providing a cloud-based facial recognition security system to safeguard businesses against crime\"."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Sainsbury's, the UK's second-largest supermarket chain, announced in January that it would be expanding its use of the Facewatch software to include five London stores - Dalston, Elephant and Castle, Ladbroke Grove, Camden and Whitechapel."}],"context.industry":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software."}],"event.root_cause":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In Rajah's case, the error was made at the second stage of human verification."}],"event.root_cause_detail":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In Rajah's case, the error was made at the second stage of human verification."}],"event.responsible_party":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"This was not an issue with the facial recognition technology in use but a case of the wrong person being approached in store."}],"event.remediation":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Sainsbury's told the BBC that management in the Elephant and Castle store would be receiving additional training."}],"impact.affected_description":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Sainsbury's has apologised for the \"human error\"."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The store is one of six in London where Sainsbury's has recently rolled out Facewatch technology, in response to rising theft and violence against staff."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Its cameras scan the faces of customers, which are compared against a database of recorded offenders."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Any matches alert store managers, who can then verify the match."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"This was not an issue with the facial recognition technology in use but a case of the wrong person being approached in store."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"When he got in touch with Facewatch, the company confirmed he was not on its database, and told him \"Facewatch did not play any part in [him] being approached at the store\"."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"In order for Facewatch to verify that Rajah was not on its system, he had to send a copy of his passport and photo of himself."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"He was redirected to Sainsbury's, which apologised and offered him a £75 shopping voucher."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Sainsbury's told the BBC that management in the Elephant and Castle store would be receiving additional training."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"The source does not state the incident date, so date_occurred is omitted; it gives no disclosure or detection date beyond the page header, which was not used. No model name, version, harness, tools or autonomy level is stated; the system is described as facial recognition with human verification, so no autonomous agent is recorded and agent_involved and failure_class are omitted. Detection method is not stated. The developer is taken from Facewatch's self-description. Incident class operational_error, root cause oversight and responsible party deployer are my judgements from Sainsbury's statement that the error was human. Severity minor is my judgement: one person and one store, with no count of other affected parties stated. The 99.98% accuracy claim is disputed by the complainant and not verified. The Byron Long case at a B&M store is another incident and is excluded. Control outcomes are recorded only where the source describes them; no control outcome for the passport step is recorded. Sainsbury's statement that Facewatch did not identify anyone is reported as its claim. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (1 report: BBC · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":"Grocery retail","org_size_band":null,"country":"GB","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"went_wrong","text":"Staff wrongly identified a customer as a flagged offender and asked him to leave the store.","quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"reached","text":"The customer was told to leave the supermarket and was not given a reason at the time.","quote":"Rajah was then told to leave the supermarket.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"caught","text":"Facewatch confirmed the customer was not on its database after he contacted it.","quote":"When he got in touch with Facewatch, the company confirmed he was not on its database, and told him \"Facewatch did not play any part in [him] being approached at the store\".","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"done","text":"Sainsbury's apologised and offered a £75 voucher; store management is to receive additional training.","quote":"He was redirected to Sainsbury's, which apologised and offered him a £75 shopping voucher.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lxdn4w2g3o"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"Sainsbury's announced it would expand Facewatch use to five London stores, including Elephant and Castle.","quote":"Sainsbury's, the UK's second-largest supermarket chain, announced in January that it would be expanding its use of the Facewatch software to include five London stores - Dalston, Elephant and Castle, Ladbroke Grove, Camden and Whitechapel.","source_index":0,"when":"January"},{"text":"Customer was approached by staff at the Elephant and Castle store and told to leave after being wrongly identified.","quote":"A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury's supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"When the customer asked why, he was directed to a poster and told to contact Facewatch.","quote":"When he asked why, he was directed to a poster in the shop's front window about the use of facial recognition technology and told to contact Facewatch.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"Facewatch confirmed the customer was not on its database.","quote":"When he got in touch with Facewatch, the company confirmed he was not on its database, and told him \"Facewatch did not play any part in [him] being approached at the store\".","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"To verify he was not on the system, the customer had to send Facewatch a copy of his passport and a photo.","quote":"In order for Facewatch to verify that Rajah was not on its system, he had to send a copy of his passport and photo of himself.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"Sainsbury's apologised and offered the customer a £75 shopping voucher.","quote":"He was redirected to Sainsbury's, which apologised and offered him a £75 shopping voucher.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"Sainsbury's said management at the Elephant and Castle store would receive additional training.","quote":"Sainsbury's told the BBC that management in the Elephant and Castle store would be receiving additional training.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lxdn4w2g3o"]}}