Asda to deploy Auror crime intelligence platform across its stores following London trial

UK supermarket chain Asda is massively expanding its use of Auror, the crime reporting and intelligence platform.

Following a trial in 30 of its London stores, Asda will now deploy Auror Core across its entire store estate. “Rolling out Auror across our estate will further strengthen our ability to prevent and tackle retail crime,” says David Lepley, COO at Asda.

“The results from our London pilot demonstrated the value of having a faster and more effective way to report incidents and identify repeat offenders in real time. By working more closely with police and retailers through a shared intelligence network, we can focus our efforts where they will have the greatest impact and help to tackle retail crime.”

A pilot using Auror’s crime intelligence platform improved how retail crime was tracked and prevented, according to Asda, with staff able to identify repeat offenders more effectively and direct security resources where they’re most needed.

Auror Core consolidates store crime data into a single system, with retailers and authorities detecting patterns and managing cases. During the trial, trained staff reviewed CCTV footage from serious incidents before uploading it to the platform alongside incident reports to support investigations. No live facial recognition was used.

The rollout comes amid rising concern over violence against shop workers. The British Retail Consortium reported in 2025 that staff faced an average of 36 violent incidents involving weapons and about 1,600 cases of abuse or violence daily. Auror’s data shows that 10 percent of offenders account for 70 percent of retail crime, and these repeat offenders are up to four times more likely to be violent or armed.

While Asda’s rollout is limited to Auror Core and does not include facial recognition, Auror recently introduced Subject Recognition in the UK. The product uses retailers’ existing crime data and applies facial recognition solely for crime prevention and store safety.

“Auror has made it 80 percent faster to record crime for Asda colleagues and early pilot results saw the team identify dozens of prolific repeat offenders, with the majority known to offend at stores owned by other retail brands within the Auror Network,” claims Mark Gleeson, general manager UK and Europe at Auror.

Auror has also been trialed by another of Britain’s “big four” supermarkets. Tesco deployed Auror’s platform across 40 stores to collect CCTV footage of serious incidents and theft for review by trained professionals at the Tesco Security Hub. There, facial recognition can be applied to still images for biometric suspect identification.

Auror is not the only security technology used by Asda. It has also trialed live facial recognition. A few months ago Asda started a trial of FaiceTech’s LFR across a handful of its stores. FaiceTech was used for two months in five stores in the Greater Manchester area.  That system was integrated into the store’s existing CCTV networks to scan images of shoppers against a watchlist of previous offenders compiled by Asda.

A hiccup at Sainsbury’s

Another “big four” supermarket chain is pausing its face scanning following a false accusation.

Sainsbury’s will pause its use of Facewatch technology after a customer was mistaken for a shoplifter and wrongly ejected from the store.

The falsely accused, Matt Arnold, told The Guardian newspaper that he was “embarrassed” and “mortified.” Arnold was scanning his items at a Sainsbury’s in southeast London when two managers approached him and said that due to an incident he would not be served.

He was then asked to leave the store. Arnold said he noticed a CCTV monitor overhead that showed his face with a red circle around it as he left.

Sainsbury’s has since said that it was “human error” that caused the customer ejection and not Facewatch. The company’s head office apologized to Arnold the day after his ordeal and has paused its use of Facewatch in the East Dulwich store as it carries out an investigation.

Sainsbury’s had been using Facewatch’s LFR at two stores. The early results of that trial were encouraging enough to prompt the chain to expand the biometric technology to five more London locations. Those early results included a 46 percent reduction in “theft, harm, aggression and antisocial behavior.”

More than 9 of 10 offenders did not return to the stores, Sainsbury’s said. The chain’s announcement noted that Facewatch’s face biometrics have a 99.98 percent accuracy rate and that all alerts are reviewed before action is taken.

However, the East Dulwich incident was apparently due to staff error. “A correct alert was sent to the retailer, but was subsequently subject to human error in the way it was handled in store,” a Facewatch spokesperson said in The Guardian.

Article Topics

Auror  |  biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  retail biometrics  |  video surveillance