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Barber shop proves it's a cut above the rest picking up coveted British retailers award

2 Sep 2025

A barber's shop in Northern Ireland has proved that it's a cut above the rest by picking up the inaugural Love Your High Street Award 2025, following a public vote that attracted over 2,230... Read more…

Independent retailers face Fresh challenges as UK inflation climbs to 3.8%

20 Aug 2025

ACT parent company Bira has expressed serious concern following today's announcement that UK inflation rose to 3.8% in July, higher than the expected 3.7% and marking the tenth consecutive month... Read more…

Bike industry continues to face challenges as profits and forecasts falter at Giant, Canyon and Shim

14 Aug 2025

The global bike industry remains under pressure as Shimano, Giant and Canyon all report weaker profits and subdued outlooks for 2025.
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ACT to join industry leaders at brand new cycling trade event this September

13 Aug 2025

The ACT is set to be in attendance at the inaugural Cycling Industry News Live (CIN Live) trade show, which is set to bring together industry-wide education, market insight and product showcases... Read more…

Independent retail crisis deepens as nearly half see sales plummet compared to last year

12 Aug 2025

Britain's high street crisis has deepened dramatically with nearly half of independent retailers, including many in the independent cycling retail sector, reporting sales have crashed compared... Read more…

Independent retailers slam £5.9bn "de minimis" import loophole as Government delays action

11 Aug 2025

ACT parent company Bira has condemned the Government's inaction over the "de minimis" import loophole following a Sky News investigation revealing £5.9 billion worth of cheap imports... Read more…

Criminals undermining legitimate retailers as trading standards collapse

7 Aug 2025

Bira has warned that criminals are undermining legitimate retailers as trading standards services collapse, following a new Which? investigation.
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ACT welcomes Government's new product safety laws

23 Jul 2025

A leading cycle traders association has backed the government's move to protect consumers from dangerous products sold through online marketplaces, following Royal Assent of the Product... Read more…

Small Business Strategy Inquiry 2025 - ACT and Bira call for members to share their voice

20 Jun 2025

The House of Commons Business and Trade Committee has asked the ACT, and its parent company Bira, to help them reach out to small business retailers across the country, for their quick input on... Read more…

Beyond the discount: Restoring integrity to the cycle supply chain

18 Jun 2025

The Association of Cycle Traders believes the time has come for greater accountability throughout our supply chain, writes ACT Director Jonathan Harrison in an article published for BikeBiz.
Read more…

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Police deploying facial recognition technology to target shoplifters and other retail criminals

Posted on in Business News, Creative News, Outdoor News

“Game-changing” facial recognition technology is targeting prolific retail criminals, including shoplifters.

ShopliftingTwelve leading firms were approached for a police pilot scheme and asked to provide images of their worst unidentified offenders. Within 60 seconds, the technology generates a match report for an officer – who can determine whether to make an arrest. Of the images supplied, 302 were suitable to use in the scheme and 149 matched shots from the It then creates a template, comparing this to the same biometric template that was created in the custody image database when the person was arrested in the past. Within 60 seconds, from the image being inputted into the system, the technology will generate a match report for a police officer to look at manually before determining whether to make an arrest.

Images can come from CCTV stills or smartphone footage. The technology is so sophisticated, it managed to find an accurate match from a grainy image where the person pictured was wearing a mask. Ms Chiswick added: “If we didn’t have this, the alternative would be an individual sitting and manually looking and comparing that picture with the other ones, which could take weeks or months.”

Lindsey Chiswick, director of intelligence, said: “From a policing perspective, facial recognition is absolutely game-changing. “We’ve been using it for a while in the post-incidence sense, but it’s only recently in the last year or so that the algorithms have really come along and it’s really accurate now.

“We can use it to point our resource at the most wanted, who have committed the most prolific offending and that ability to prioritise is really key at a time when our resources are spread quite thinly.” Instead of taking into account characteristics such as whether a person is male or female or dark or light-skinned, the biometric tool calculates the individual measurements of people’s faces.

Kyle Gordon, commander frontline policing with responsibility for business and retail crime at the Met said while the force does not have a threshold of the value of items stolen when investigating thefts, he expects the new facial recognition technology to be deployed for the most harmful incidents in shops, such as assaults and hate crime.

This comes on the back of news that shoplifting offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales have risen by a quarter in the past year, according to official figures. The data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) last week comes after warnings from major retailers about the rising cost of theft from their stores.

Some 365,164 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in the year to June - up 25% on the previous 12 months.

The figure is 2% above the 359,236 offences in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20, but not as high as the 375,350 offences in 2018/19.

ONS data shows total police-recorded theft rose by 10% in the year to June 2023, which is still below pre-pandemic levels.

The government has come under increasing pressure to tackle the rise in shoplifting, which has been blamed on the cost-of-living crisis and organised crime.

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