The Privacy Commissioner of the Office of Australian Information Commission (OAIC) has found that Kmart Australia Limited (Kmart) breached Australians’ privacy by collecting their personal and sensitive information through a facial recognition technology (FRT) system designed to tackle refund fraud. Between June 2020 and July 2022, Kmart deployed FRT to capture the faces of every person who entered 28 of its retail stores, and all individuals who presented at a returns counter, in an attempt to identify people committing refund fraud. In its determination, the Privacy Commissioner found that Kmart did not notify shoppers or seek their consent to use FRT to collect their biometric information. The indiscriminate collection of biometric data from all customers, regardless of suspicion, was deemed disproportionate, especially given the availability of less intrusive methods to address refund fraud.
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