I went to Sainsburys today. As I got to the self-checkouts, I could see there was a much bigger queue than usual. I soon found out why: they have just updated all of the self-checkouts, and the new software is glitchy. About half the people there checking out were requiring assistance from the staff, and the three staff members could barely keep up.
For a while now all of the self checkouts have had screens above them that record, or at least watch you while you scan. You can see yourself in the screen, I assume it’s to deter theft. I started scanning my items, and immediately I found out what the new software is. On the first item, the screen snapped an image of my face, and kept the image on screen above me, while the screen in front of me that shows the scanned items got a big warning flashing up on it, declaring that I had bagged an item that I hadn’t scanned.
Both screens froze like this, my face on the screen above with a message in huge letters on the screen below declaring to the entire shop I had bagged something without scanning. Declaring me a thief to the entire shop, even though I hadn’t done anything. Because the staff were so busy with all the glitches I had to wait there like this for about 10 minutes until someone would deal with it.
As I waited I watched the other checkouts and saw that this glitchy new tech was doing the same thing to other people. It seems ridiculous, it’s made the process longer, caused a bigger queue, and is wrongly accusing everyone of stealing. It seems counter-intuitive, they want more people to use self checkouts but this is going to put me off using them in future.
I dread to think what they’ll come up with next. Maybe they’ll eventually get rid of all cashiers and when the machine accuses you of stealing there will be no one to check your items and see that you haven’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have robot police waiting to arrest you for supposedly unscanned items soon.
And let’s not forget this is to stop starving, poverty-stricken people from accessing food in the only way some people have.
Reminder that it’s very easy to cover stuff in your trolley with bags. It’s often easy to just throw stuff through the checkout, look like you scanned it, and wait for an employee to unlock the till because they’re overworked. You can even leave stuff on the scanning platform so it doesn’t get weighed, and staff are unlikely to pick up on it.
Also an important reminder that at least in the UK, shop staff have no authority to ‘check your receipt’ or any bullshit. Any random basket checks or whatever, you are completely in your rights to ignore them and leave.
Very few shops will permit their staff to ever forcefully detain people, but legally speaking, shop staff can only detain you if they can argue reasonable belief you have committed a crime, unlike for police, just suspicion is not enough. No matter how qualified or SIA-certified a security guard is, they have no more rights than normal citizens. If they forcefully detain you and you committed no crime, you can sue for assault, wrongful imprisonment, damages, distress, etc. (compensation is usually in the thousands).
Under no circumstances do they have a right to forcefully search you, they have to call police for that.
Police can detain you for any reason, but they cannot search you without reasonable grounds. They cannot legally enforce nor perform a random search without reasonable grounds. If they do, sue. (obviously they have lots of get-out clauses, but there are also many successful suits for this kind of action, so it’s not a fruitless endeavour)