Embarrassing encounter at Woolies checkout

AI camera technology designed to target theft has divided Woolies shoppers – and now one woman has shared her experience.

A woman has been left embarrassed after she came face-to-face with one supermarket’s new antitheft technology.

Noni Lyall, 68, was shopping at a Woolworths on the NSW south coast when a red light above the self-serve checkout started flashing.

She said she had bagged up her groceries but left out a juice bottle that didn’t fit, which she instead put straight into her trolley. But the AI technology saw the juice hadn’t been bagged and sounded the alarm.

A staff member came to see what the issue was, with Noni asking her what was happening.

“She said, ‘It’s saying that you haven’t scanned some of your items in your shopping trolley,” Noni told Yahoo News Australia.

“I’m 68-year-old lady, I don’t steal. I just thought, wow, you want us to do all our own work now by scanning our own groceries, not having the staff to service, and yet you’re going to start accusing us of not paying? How dare they?”

The overhead AI cameras were introduced to 250 Woolworths stores along the country’s east coast following a successful trial last year.

Woolworths said they are designed to help customers scan their items more easily, and prevent people from trying to pass off more expensive items as cheaper ones.

Woolworths shoppers furious at self serve with cameras over the top

News.com.au understands that the technology will improve as it adapts to the Woolworths system.

A Woolworths spokesperson said at the time of the rollout that the overhead cameras helped “reduce misscans” and are one of a number of initiatives rolled out across check-outs “to make shopping more convenient and seamless”.

“While most customers do the right thing at our self-serve check-outs, we’re all busy and mistakes can easily happen,” the spokesperson said.

“We’d like to thank our customers for their support while we’ve implemented this initiative.”

The technology has been heavily scrutinised. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Despite Woolworths’ best intentions, the move has divided shoppers, who have complained about a number of aspects, including privacy.

But the retailer has repeatedly stressed that faces and pin pads were blurred out by the technology, and that footage captured from these cameras was used only for training purposes.