Police to Use Passport Database to Catch Shoplifters

It comes amid a surge in retail crime across the country, with staff often facing violence and abuse by perpetrators.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp arrives at the Treasury office in central London on Sept. 7, 2022. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

Police will check shoplifters caught on CCTV against official databases, including passports, as part of a new zero-tolerance approach to retail crime.

Businesses across the country have been significantly affected by shoplifting, which has often resulted in violence or abuse towards retail workers.

The financial cost to retailers from shoplifting has also been on the rise, John Lewis and the Co-op have warned, according to the PA news agency.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank ahead of the Conservative Party Conference on Oct. 2, policing minister Chris Philp said that modern technology enables searching for criminals with greater accuracy.

CCTV images of perpetrators of shoplifters can be matched against databases of custody images and the passport database, Mr. Philp said.

“The algorithm which matches crime scene images against various databases is so accurate that even where the image is blurred and the face is partially obscured, it is possible to get matches,” the minister added.

The Metropolitan Police often use facial recognition technology as a real-time aid to help locate people and also after an event has occurred.

Mr. Philp asked the police forces to search all of available databases, not just for shoplifting, but for crime generally “to get those matches.”

People line up outside an Iceland supermarket on Roman Road in Bow, London, on March 21, 2020. Hollie Adams/Getty Images

“Operationally, I’m asking them to do it now. In the medium term, by which I mean the next two years, we’re going to try and create a new data platform so you can press one button [and it] lets you search it all in one go,” Mr. Philp said on Monday.

Civil liberties campaigner Big Brother Watch said that using passport photos was a violation of Britons’ privacy.

Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo suggested that the government should “concentrate on fixing broken policing rather than building an automated surveillance state.”

Zero Tolerance

Incidents of retail theft have increased by 27 percent across 10 of the largest cities in the UK, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said in July.

The BRC also reported that incidents of violence and abuse against retail employees have almost doubled on the pre-pandemic levels.

A zero-tolerance approach is needed to tackle the rise of retail crime and to ensure the safety of retail workers, Mr. Philp said.

In cases when staff detain a shoplifter, the police should provide the “highest grade of emergency response” and always attend the crime scene, the minister said.

“I’d also like to see proactive patrol patterns, reflecting areas where there is significant shoplifting going on to act as a deterrent,” Mr. Philp said.

Shoppers walk past a John Lewis store in Oxford Street, central London on July 2, 2020. Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images

The BRC reported that the nature of retail crime has changed, with companies reporting increasing links to organised crime activity.

Facial recognition databases will help identify perpetrators who commit large volumes of shoplifting and those with links to organised gangs, Mr. Philp said.

The minister argued that if the UK doesn’t implement a zero-tolerance approach, “we’re going to end up escalating into what we’re seeing in some American cities which is completely unacceptable.”

Mr. Philp was referring to cases in the United States where stores have quit parts of cities like San Francisco because of the level of crime. There is also concern that the U.S. phenomenon of “grab and go“ has largely been replicated in Britain.

Costs and Pressures

Retail crime costs the economy £1.9 billion a year, while businesses have to pay about £600 million a year to put protections in place, according to the government.

Democratic Unionist Party MP Ian Paisley, who addressed the issue in Parliament in July, said that if left unchecked, retail crime will force business to “buckle and fold.”

Mr. Paisley recognised the added pressure of the cost-of-living crisis on citizens, and added that not all businesses are capable of paying for security measures and the latest technology.

Speaking about the role of retail staff and security guards, Mr. Philp suggested that they have the power of citizen’s arrest and encouraged them to use it “where it is safe to do so.”

This has been criticised by advocacy group Liberty, which argued that instead of putting the responsibility on retail staff, the government “should ensure that families can pay their rent and feed their children.”