Sainsbury’s self-checkout surveillance has gone too far

Sainsbury’s is stepping up surveillance on its self-checkout tills. It’s hard not to laugh out loud. Not only will shoppers in some stores be recorded close-up by a VAR-style camera as they pack their groceries, but should anything appear amiss they may be shown a replay bearing the message: ‘Looks like that last item didn’t scan. Please check you scanned it correctly before continuing’. It doesn’t get much more Big Brother than that.

Britain is rapidly becoming a surveillance society. Banks of cameras are part of the furniture on our streets, and in our supermarkets and shops. Some stores even use facial recognition. As I wrote in The Spectator a year ago, this obsession with surveillance and automation is part of the reason why I no longer shop at Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s and other supermarket bosses are missing something fundamental about their customers which can be summed up very simply: we’re human! And, as humans, we don’t like to be watched, scrutinised and surveilled.