Australian supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths have carried out early-stage trials of facial recognition technology to explore options for tackling rising crime and violent incidents in stores.

According to the Australian Financial Review, the trials are part of a broader retail sector push to assess the technology for staff protection, particularly in Victoria, where major chains have recorded growing levels of theft and other offences.

Both companies have already put millions of dollars into anti-theft measures such as exit gates, cameras covering bagging areas, and body-worn cameras for staff.

The move comes after a ruling in favour of Wesfarmers, which succeeded in overturning a decision by the privacy commissioner that had deemed the use of facial recognition technology an invasion of customer privacy.

Bunnings, the Wesfarmers-owned hardware chain that had been trialling the technology, is now widening its rollout.

Following the Bunnings case, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner revised its guidance to allow retailers to deploy facial recognition tools where the aim is to counter serious crime, violence, abuse or intimidation.

A Coles spokesperson told the Australian Financial Review: “A small, one-off, controlled proof-of-concept test of the technology was undertaken which did not use customer or team-member information or data. No decision has been made about the deployment of facial recognition technology. We will always explore technology that will help us keep our team and customers safe.”

Woolworths has finished a trial at its New Zealand office and is considering whether to roll the technology out more widely in its stores there.

Facial recognition systems record shoppers' biometric data, which is then checked against a watchlist of individuals flagged for aggressive conduct or previous bans.

In the retail context proposed for Australia, use would be restricted to identifying repeat offenders, with images discarded when no match is found on the watchlist.

Figures from the Australian Retail Council show that more than 60% of retail crime is carried out by the most prolific 10% of offenders.