Retailers who deploy facial-recognition security systems were alerted to the presence of repeat offenders in their stores over half a million times last year.
Some 14,885 alerts were triggered by following someone’s face matching data on Facewatch’s catalogue of suspected miscreants in the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve alone. In total, the firm flagged 516,739 alerts to retailers after people linked to stealing, shopworker abuse and other crimes entered establishments in 2025.
That figure represents a 100% increase on 2024, when just over 250,000 alerts were flagged, with Facewatch’s growing data and customer base, in conjunction with surging retail crime, being behind the rise. Offenders are added to the company’s database by retailers following criminal activity, and Facewatch says that on average, alerts are sent out to retailers just nine seconds after someone on its database enters a store.
Nick Fisher, Facewatch’s chief executive, says shop-based crime now stands at “industrial levels”, and that “retailers are dealing with levels of theft and aggression that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.”
He adds that his firm’s system “gives staff time to prepare, de-escalate or deploy appropriate measures”, and that it is intended to prevent crime, rather than staff finding themselves “responding after harm is done”.
The company counts Spar, Budgens and Costcutter among its clients, and says its system boasts 99.98% accuracy.
