Auror launches facial recognition tool for retail crime prevention and safety

Auror has introduced a facial recognition product called Subject Recognition aimed at helping retailers tackle violent and organized retail crime. 

The New Zealand supplier of retail crime prevention technology announced in September that it was preparing to offer a biometric matching tool to scan the faces of shoppers entering the store against a watchlist of known risky individuals. 

The new Subject Recognition solution allows retailers to integrate their own data on serious repeat offenders with facial recognition technology (FRT), enabling early alerts when high-risk individuals enter a store. Auror says the system is designed with strict safeguards to ensure it is used solely for crime prevention and safety.

Auror CEO and Co-founder Phil Thomson emphasized that the technology is built with privacy and ethical use at its core. “Subject Recognition cannot in any way be used for tracking, monitoring or profiling people,” he said. 

“Like all of our services, it prohibits retailers from entering sensitive information like ethnicity, race and religion, which is a key safeguard that reduces human bias, improves evidence-based decision-making, and enhances privacy.”

The tool works by instantly discarding biometric data and images that do not match a retailer’s list of known offenders. Even when a match occurs, biometric data is never stored, and human oversight is required for all decisions, according to Auror. It aligns with the company’s commitment to responsible technology use and evidence-based crime prevention.

Auror bills itself as “a platform for retailers to prevent crime, reduce loss, and make stores safer” by “transforming intel reported by frontline teams into intelligence that removes offender anonymity and enables teams to safely prevent crime.”

According to Auror’s U.S. retail data, one in seven incidents involves violence or threatening behavior, with just 10 percent of repeat offenders responsible for over 70 percent of retail crime. These individuals are more than four times more likely to be violent, pointing to the need for targeted interventions.

Subject Recognition is part of Auror’s broader Risk Detection suite, which includes Vehicle Recognition, and supports the company’s “50 in 5” mission — to help retailers reduce violent retail crime by 50 percent within five years.

“The retail sector is one of the biggest workforces in the world, made up of workers young and old, with the majority being women,” Thomson says. “This technology is about protecting these vulnerable frontline workers by preventing violent and threatening retail crime incidents from happening in the first place.” 

Last November the retail crime intelligence platform raised US$48.7 million to fund its global expansion and improve its public safety technology. The company’s lead investors include Axon Enterprise Inc., W23 Global, and Reinventure. The funding round raised its valuation to an estimated $297 million. The company’s solutions are available to enterprise retailers in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and the United Kingdom.

Article Topics

Auror  |  biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  retail biometrics