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The politics behind Australian retailers' flirtation with biometric-data

By James Panichi and Saloni Sinha ( September 18, 2025, 06:53 GMT | Comment) -- Kmart’s trial of facial-recognition technology has hit a regulatory snag, with Australia’s privacy watchdog ruling this week that the discount retailer had broken the law when it collected and stored the biometric data of customers approaching its stores’ refunds counter. This followed a similar determination by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner targeting hardware seller Bunnings, which also experimented with FRT. Yet the battle over the use of biometric data to fight in-store crime isn’t over, with retailers calling on lawmakers to embrace the technology’s many benefits.It would have come as no surprise to Australian discount retailer Kmart that its recent dalliance with technology allowing it to capture, and briefly store, the biometric data of its customers would have culminated in a regulatory clash....

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