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Low reported severity

Greater Manchester: woman on a Facewatch watchlist after a store theft allegation was ejected from two Home Bargains stores, then found to have paid

BBC News reported on 14 June 2025 that a woman was asked to leave a Home Bargains store in Salford on 24 May 2025 and another in Fallowfield, Manchester, on 4 June 2025, with no initial explanation. She later learned her profile was on a Facewatch facial recognition watchlist after an allegation of theft of about 10 pounds of toilet rolls on 8 May. Facewatch said a review showed the items had been paid for. A Reach newspaper report of 18 June 2025 quotes Facewatch saying there was no error with its technology and that a staff member wrongly marked her as a thief. BBC reports a Facewatch email saying the Home Bargains branches involved were suspended from using its system. She reports days of anxiety. The Reach report says she received an apology on 6 June.

AI system
Facewatch facial recognition
Facewatch
Occurred
24 May 2025 to 6 Jun 2025
Reported
14 June 2025
Event location
United Kingdom
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Psychological DistressReputational Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
5 claims: 5 reported. 5 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Facewatch facial recognition watchlist alerts (deployed by Home Bargains)

Reported harm

BBC and a Reach newspaper report that the woman was asked to leave two stores after a facial recognition watchlist alert. They describe days of anxiety and stress until Facewatch's review found the items had been paid for.

What remains unknown

  • Whether the woman was on the watchlist because of a store staff entry or another route is settled only by Facewatch's own statement.
  • The Reach report shares the woman's account and Facewatch statements with the BBC report, so the two are treated as one chain and neither is independent confirmation.
  • The BBC says Home Bargains declined to comment and the Reach report says the owner had 'nobody available for comment'. No retailer account was inspected.
  • The woman was taken off the system and, per the Reach report only, put back on before the 6 June apology. The timing of the removal is not otherwise stated.
  • Whether the woman's image was shared with other retailers is not stated. The BBC says her picture 'had somehow been circulated to local stores'.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. BBC reports she was ejected after her profile was added to a facial recognition watchlist, and the Reach report quotes a store manager, as recalled by her, saying she had been recognised on facial recognition. Facewatch says the technology worked correctly and a store staff member entered the wrong theft allegation. On Facewatch's account, the system relayed a staff member's entry about her, and the inspected sources do not show a face-matching error.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A woman was asked to leave a Home Bargains store in Regent Road, Salford on 24 May 2025 and, on 4 June 2025, was surrounded by staff and told to leave a second Home Bargains store in Fallowfield, Manchester, where she was with her mother.

Causal attribution. Both reports rest on the woman's own account of the two ejections. No retailer account of the events was inspected.

Reported Her profile was on a Facewatch facial recognition watchlist because of an allegation of theft of about 10 pounds of toilet rolls on 8 May 2025. Facewatch said a later review showed the items had been paid for.

Causal attribution. The watchlist entry, its cause and the review outcome come from the woman and from Facewatch statements relayed by BBC and by a Reach newspaper. Home Bargains declined to comment.

  • bbc.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    She later discovered she was falsely accused of stealing about £10 worth of items after her profile was added to a facial recognition watchlist to prevent shoplifting.
  • bbc.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    there had been an allegation of theft of about £10 worth of toilet rolls on 8 May.
  • bbc.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The firm said a review of the incident later showed the items had been paid for.
  • uk.news.yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    after staff mistakenly marked her as having stolen a pack of 24 toilet rolls on a previous visit.
Reported Facewatch said there was no error in its facial recognition technology and blamed a member of store staff for wrongly marking the woman as a thief. A Facewatch email said the system relies on information submitted by stores, and the Home Bargains branches involved were suspended from using the Facewatch system.

Causal attribution. Facewatch's own account of its conduct and system. The BBC reports it as seen in an email to the woman. The inspected sources do not show any independent check of the algorithm.

Reported The woman reports anxiety, feeling sick and stress over several days while she tried to prove she had paid, and that her mother was stressed at the second store.

Causal attribution. First-person account relayed by two outlets that trace to the same interview. The mother's stress is the daughter's description and the mother is not counted as harmed.

Reported The woman received an apology on 6 June 2025 after the company looked at CCTV again and saw she had paid, and her data was removed from the Facewatch system.

Causal attribution. Timeline is the woman's account and a Facewatch statement relayed by a Reach newspaper. The source also says she was taken off the system and then put back on before the apology.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: United Kingdom. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

BBC places both stores in Greater Manchester (Salford and Fallowfield, Manchester) under its BBC Manchester section. The woman's residence is not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: The BBC News article and the Reach newspaper report on Yahoo were read in full from the saved bodies and treated as one reporting chain. Claims stay at reported status and Facewatch statements are attributed. The woman is named in the reporting and is not named in this record.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One woman reported ejected twice and distressed. Her mother was present at the second store and is described as stressed by the daughter; she is not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Greater Manchester: woman on a Facewatch watchlist after a store theft allegation was ejected from two Home Bargains stores, then found to have paid. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-greater-manchester-home-bargains-facewatch-shopper-ejected-from-two-stores

BibTeX

@misc{2025_greater_manchester_home_bargains_facewatch_shopper_ejected_from_two_stores,
  title = {Greater Manchester: woman on a Facewatch watchlist after a store theft allegation was ejected from two Home Bargains stores, then found to have paid},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-greater-manchester-home-bargains-facewatch-shopper-ejected-from-two-stores}
}

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