A Māori mother was left feeling racially discriminated against and embarrassed after being mistakenly identified as a trespasser during a trial of facial recognition technology at a Rotorua supermarket.
Te Ani Solomon, a longtime resident of Rotorua, recounted the incident at New World Westend on her 47th birthday, describing it as a ‘horrible’ ordeal. She and her teenage son had stopped by the supermarket to purchase food, only to be confronted by staff who accused her of trespassing.
According to Solomon, despite her protests and offers of identification, the staff insisted she leave, basing their decision on an image that she claims did not resemble her. She told legacy media of her anger at what she perceived as deliberate intimidation and disrespect, stating, ‘just because I’m black and wear a cap you twats have decided that’s me.’
The incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, culminated in Solomon leaving the store without her intended purchase and feeling helpless and humiliated. While she understood the need to combat shoplifting, no one should endure such treatment, she said.
Solomon was concerned the incident occurred despite staff training for the facial recognition trial, leading her to feel at risk wherever she goes.
A spokesperson for Foodstuffs acknowledged the mistake as one of human error and apologised to Solomon. They assured that further training would be provided to staff, and the incident would be reported to the Privacy Commissioner.
The incident prompted the Commissioner Michael Webster to launch an inquiry into the facial recognition trial, citing concerns about bias and accuracy, particularly regarding people of colour. Consumer New Zealand also voiced privacy concerns, labeling the technology as highly invasive and highlighting potential reliability issues, especially for certain racial groups.
Well the next step is they can ban you from getting your food and supplies because you don’t go along with the current dogma, be it no vaccine/jab proof, no mask worn, disagreeing with the alphabet people’s agenda, saying something that will be under a hate crime law one day. This is the first step in how they are going to try to control us to force us to choose to starve or comply. And if you think it’s only about stopping shoplifting, I have a nice tape of Newshub and Paddy Gower shows to sell you…
The fact that she is ‘Maori’ has absolutely nothing to do with this. The poor woman wasn’t targeted because she was ‘Maori’; she was wrong identified by a robot.
Let’s stop bringing race into everything, shall we? It’s not helpful and it seeds division.
Respectfully gonna disagree with you here.
Race very well COULD be a factor in the AI misidentifying her. I don’t think the technology is as far along as they’d like everyone to believe.
People of European ancestry are actually objectively very diverse (blondes, redheads, olive skinned etc), whereas people of other ethnicities (eg African or Asian) share far more similar physical traits that might make them more difficult for an underdeveloped AI to differentiate.
This poor woman was 100% innocent of any wrongdoing, yet the system flagged her anyway, and it was quite literally due to her physical features. If that’s not racial profiling, I don’t know what is 🤷🏼♂️
How many more innocent people will end up being mistaken for perps? What do they think that’s going to do for race relations in NZ?
One more reason this crap should be rejected immediately. Privacy commissioner’s asleep at the wheel. Utterly useless.
The only way to stop this is to hit them in the pocket. Do not enter any store that has this garbage in place. Simple.
Start a hashtag, encourage others to do the same, spread the word. Let the owners watch their stores stand empty for a day or two, they’ll quickly get rid of it.
Yes, we need to arrange a boycott on all business that have facial recognition.
Definitely.
So facial recognition is a big fat FAIL. We all need to wear hats and masks when entering these shops who think it’s Ok to do this. Or preferably boycott them.
So can we have the mug shot of the individual(s) who operate that New World?
Is it owned by Karen and Darren Huston?