Customers fear ‘big brother’ tech as Aussie supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles ramp up surveillance in stores to protect staff from abuse

A brave new world of hi-tech surveillance is sweeping through Australian supermarkets, with retail giants Woolworths and Coles investing millions in more cameras.

But the ‘Big Brother’ experience of being watched and scanned while shopping has left some shoppers worried, with social media channels such as TikTok exploding with videos of people complaining about the new measures.

TikTokker Fergus Neal said he was ‘out’ after discovering Coles would be introducing body-worn cameras to its stores.

“I don’t walk into a Coles store and see a cyborg on minimum wage with a camera strapped to their chest, that’s insane,” he said.

“I don’t want to live in a place like that.”

Consumer behavior expert Professor Nitika Garg from the University of NSW insisted there was no “dangerous motivation” behind the increased surveillance, but it was causing significant inconvenience to customers.

“It’s only a recent phenomenon that you can see your own image as your scan items,” she said.

‘I know what their motivation is, but even then you become a bit more self-conscious when you say: ‘Look, I’m scanning the right variety of tomato here. Do not scan the cheaper version”.

“We knew they always had cameras in stock, but I think this is a new one and it’s a very blatant message to the consumer: ‘look, we’re watching and please do the right thing.’

The companies are introducing more cameras to prevent inventory loss, theft and misuse.

The measures come after more than 3,000 acts of violence and assault were committed against Woolworths staff in the past year.

Company CEO Brad Banducci told an annual general meeting on Thursday that various security measures were being looked at to prevent acts of violence against the company’s 200,000 employees.

This includes investments in CCTV cameras, walkie-talkie headsets and training in violence and aggression in virtual reality.

Retail workers, often young workers on relatively low wages, can face abuse from customers and Coles and Woolworths are introducing body-worn cameras for customer-facing roles as a measure to protect staff.

Woolworths’ 2023 earnings report says it will invest more than $40 million in CCTV upgrades, body cameras and wearable restraint devices ‘to improve safety for our teams’.

It is understood that the body cameras are not used to monitor shoppers and are not permanently enabled.

Employees have the option to turn them in if an interaction with a customer threatens to veer toward abuse.

Coles’ 2023 annual report notes that total losses, including stock losses, waste and markdowns, have increased by 20 percent year-on-year and “remain an industry-wide headwind, with increased levels of organized retail crime and customer theft due to the costs of living pressure’.

Woolworths has also recorded an increase in stock losses due to theft and will roll out its Scan Assist technology across 474 supermarkets by the end of the year to support accurate scanning.

“We have a number of initiatives that we are using, both covertly and overtly, to help reduce retail crime, which currently reflects levels we experienced before the Covid pandemic,” a Woolworths spokesperson said.

‘These initiatives include the use of camera technology at the checkouts, double welcome gates, CCTV and a trial of gates at the exit of our self-service checkout.

‘We use technology such as team strobes and VR training modules to support and prepare our team members for instances where they may feel unsafe.

“However, the majority of our customers do the right thing and treat our team with respect, and we thank them for that.”

The move toward more tech oversight stems from the general shift toward automation at major retailers, with fewer employees on site at checkouts to scan items and monitor shoppers.

Professor Garg warns that the major supermarkets could damage their long-term brand loyalty and leave customers to the competition without a better communications campaign explaining the changes.

“Maybe they think this isn’t a problem,” she said.

‘The reality is yes, we don’t have an option at the moment, but people who think it’s a viable option have moved to places like Aldi or IGA and some of us could do that once other options become available.

“We don’t know what kind of shift we’re seeing among local greengrocers,” she said.

Professor Garg said retailers could put up notice boards in stores, send emails and deploy more staff on site to help customers better understand why they are investing in more surveillance.

“They can afford to do this and they’re just missing that opportunity by allowing this negative emotion and unease to simmer in the consumer base,” she said.

Customers also need to know that the data is well secured, Professor Garg said.

In a media call for the company’s latest earnings report, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said the retailer was trying to strike a “delicate balance” between rising surveillance fears, a frictionless shopping experience and team safety.

“It’s something we spend a lot of time thinking about and making adjustments as we go,” he said.

“The one thing I need to be unequivocally clear about is privacy. There is no way to compromise the privacy of individuals, so that is non-negotiable for us.

“The rest is a trade-off between, as I said, friction for our customers and safety for our team, and it’s something that we’ll continue to monitor and adapt on an ongoing basis.”

Coles did not respond to queries at the time of publication.