By https://www.abc.net.au/news/luke-cooper/104477724
Publication Date: 2026-02-05 05:11:00
Australian hardware giant Bunnings has won its battle to monitor its customers using artificial intelligence facial recognition technology to combat retail crime and reduce employee abuse.
Australian privacy commissioner Carly Kind found in 2024 that Bunnings violated privacy laws by scanning hundreds of thousands of customers’ faces without their appropriate consent.
A review of this decision by the Administrative Review Tribunal of Australia has now found the opposite.
Bunnings has spent two years fighting a data protection commissioner’s ruling that the company had broken the law in its use of facial recognition technology. (Getty Images: Daniel Pockett)
The retailer did not violate the law by scanning customers’ identities, but must improve its privacy policies and inform customers about its use of AI-based facial recognition technology, the ruling said.
“We welcome the Administrative Review Tribunal’s decision regarding Bunnings’ previous trial of facial recognition technology,” Bunnings said…
