Bunnings have begun rolling out facial recognition technology in its New Zealand stores, saying it's needed to protect staff and customers because violent incidents continue to rise, despite the fact we've got tough on crime, and we've had a bit of a crackdown. The first two stores to switch on the facial recognition technology are in Te Rapa and Hamilton South, both in the Waikato, but a nationwide rollout is planned. The company says the technology will help identify serious repeat offenders, it will reduce theft, and they do this after what they say is a sharp increase in threatening behaviour.  

Now this whole thing has taken forever for Bunnings. In Australia, Bunnings fought for four years to get permission to do this. There were courts involved, there were tribunals involved, there was a lot of controversy, and a four-year battle. Here, for Bunnings, it's only taken six months because Foodstuffs had already got approval from the Privacy Commissioner, so the hard work was done. But even so, six months for Bunnings to finally roll out a little bit of facial recognition in their stores. They worked hard at it, they've been taking privacy guidance. The Foodstuffs trial last year scanned 225 million faces and they deleted all the images within a minute, but there were concerns at the time about misidentification and bias and the need for strong safeguards, so Bunnings worked away at all of this. They hired a Māori digital sovereignty expert —who knew such a thing existed or was even needed— to make sure cultural considerations are built in. There is bilingual signage for the facial recognition, and if you think you've been wrongly identified as a bad guy, there are clear pathways for you to object to all of this.  

But you know, all this kafuffle about getting the permission shows all of us that there are still a load of people in this world who do not like the idea. There's more issues to come, but are you worried about the rise and rise and rise of facial recognition technology? Or do you have no problem with it because it's a tool to fight crime?  

Now all of this reminds me of debates I used to listen to on when Leighton Smith used to do this show. And he would do a show and it's all about freedom and liberty, and people would come on and say, “Oh, there's no problem, no problem at all, mate. If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." And Leighton would say, “Yes, but bit by bit, little by little, our personal freedom and liberty is being stripped and replaced by an all-powerful state monitoring our every step and then controlling the way we behave. It's the threat of Big Brother." But the difference now that time has passed, it's not actually the state that's doing all the facial recognition, it's the corporate world.  

So it's not the state, it's the corporates, and the corporates seem to want to know every little thing about us. Your phone is monitoring where you are, what you do, what you look at, it's telling you what to think. And I get tired of being told what I should be listening to next by Spotify because they've looked at what I've listened to before and said, “well, this is you," and I go, “well, actually, I'm a broader, wider person than that, and stop bothering me." I'm tired of my car telling me how to drive, “your tyres are a little flat, would you like to check into the service centre?" No, I would not. I don't have the time right now. Would you shut up, car? I'm trying to drive.  

Facial recognition technology, do you have any problem with it? And I know you do because look how long it's taken to get approval and how many people have had conniptions about it and had worries about it, and the Privacy Commissioner has spent millions on it just investigating this sort of thing. Is this the rise and rise of Big Brother, or is this necessary as we fight crime?