Bunnings Wins Facial Recognition Battle

Hardware giant Bunnings has received approval to use facial recognition technology in its stores to combat crime and protect its employees and customers. The administrative review tribunal overturned a 2024 ruling by the Australian privacy commissioner that had previously found Bunnings breached privacy regulations by scanning customers' faces. The tribunal acknowledged that Bunnings had not adequately notified visitors about the data collection.

Between January 2019 and November 2021, Bunnings deployed this technology across 62 stores in New South Wales and Victoria. The system scanned hundreds of thousands of faces, comparing them against a watchlist of individuals banned from stores. Store managers testified about the regular occurrence of threatening and abusive customer behavior, with one manager detailing incidents every two to three days that left staff visibly shaken.

The tribunal ruled that Bunnings was justified in using the technology for the "limited purpose of combatting very significant retail crime and protecting their staff and customers from violence, abuse and intimidation." While acknowledging occasional false positives, the tribunal noted these were manually reviewed and that Bunnings' system reportedly showed no racial bias. Bunnings has accepted feedback to improve customer signage regarding data collection.