Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential role of technology in tackling theft and violence in convenience stores across the UK.

The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting and violence towards shopworkers has on businesses, communities, and consumers, and supports the use of emerging technologies to prevent and detect crime where it is necessary, proportionate, and fair.

In October, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel.

The plan encourages the use of technology; where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this as standard through the Police National Database using facial recognition technology to further aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.

Innovative technologies have huge potential to cut crime and reduce the cost of crime to businesses, as well as making workplaces and communities safer. The Government is keen to support increased adoption of these technologies, to prevent crime, recognising this must be done in a lawful and proportionate way with due consideration given to privacy. We are continuing to work closely with retail businesses, security representatives, trade associations and policing through the National Retail Crime Steering Group to discuss how technology can be used to tackle retail crime.

The National Business Crime Centre has been running workshops with retailers and Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS) providers to support the use of DEMS to help assist in sharing evidence with the police.