Sainsburys smartshop app "random" checks

[Dumdidums]

Hello
I just want some reassurance that this smart shop app and its policies are ethical.
Today my friend (a black male) went shopping in Sainburys Lee Green Supermaket in South East London and paid for his shopping using the smartshop app. As he was about to leave one of the members of staff said that he had to have his shopping cross checked with the receipt because the security guard at the door requested this. The check resulted in no discrepancies .

What we are wondering is whether it is normal for a security guard to request that your smart shop receipt is double checked with the items bought. The worry here is that there is some form of racial profiling going on at sainsburys as there was no good reason given why my friend was selected for this check and the worry is that the check was requested because he was black.

He asked the staff member why he had to have his shopping checked and got not explanation other than that the security guard told the staff member to do it. This took place today Sunday afternoon and the shop was quite busy but in the half hour or so that he was at the smart shop app counter, no other customers were requested to undergo this check .

Has anyone else had this happen ? Does anyone know what criteria the security guards use to ask that a smart shop app shopper is being checked and what training they undergo to avoid unconscious bias ??

Thanks

I am a white female and have been stopped a couple of times for bag checks in supermarkets.

I have never had this (white female) despite shopping in Sainsburys several times a week for over 20 years.

However I did get a re-scan three times last week and on the second time the staff were so incompetent it took ages, what with that and now having to take a receipt to scan at the little gate to get out I have given up. Did my weekly shop last night the old-fashioned way via a cashier and it was SO quick and easy, no more scanning app for me, I thought. But they have made the Nectar offers only available by self-scan. Pretty fed up with Sainsburys right now.

I dont think this is rascal as all the security guards that i have seen in this store are also black but there is one guard that for some reason likes to check receipts. Please also remember that security guards are not sainsburys staff they work for a security company and are contracted in.

I’ve never been stopped by a security guard but went through a long streak of rescans where they would say I hadn’t scanned something and make me do the whole shop again- I started making a note of the price and item amount and it always matched so I complained to the manager and he just said ‘if the system says it doesn’t match then it doesn’t.’

I then started screen shotting before checking out so I would have evidence and the checks stopped immediately- this annoyed me at first (since I would have finally been able to prove it) but when I mentioned this to a friend who works in tech he told me that apps ‘absolutely can tell’ when a screenshot has been taken. Has made me question if the algorithm just throws you into a pot of people who will always get a rescan or something, but stopped it after it knew I had proof? Maybe too suspicious but that’s how it felt to me!

I am white but at the time was buying baby food and pricey alcohol which I assumed was why I was getting checked.

There are 3 people in my household and within the last 6 months, all 3 of us have been stopped on separate occasions when attempting to leave a shop, after making a purchase. We are all white.
I was stopped in Sainsburys after using the self checkout till. I bought my goods, paid using a card, got a receipt and attempted to leave the store. I was chased by a store assistant who said that my card payment had been declined and therefore implied that I was stealing the goods. I had the receipt still in my hand. I showed this to the assistant, and showed them that the goods in my bag matched the receipt.
I was then asked to accompany the assistant back to the self checkout machines, which I did. Sure enough, one of the machines was showing that payment hadn't gone through correctly , except it was the machine next to the one I had used, not the one that I actually used.
After some huffing and puffing by the assistant, I was allowed to leave the store with my purchases. I have been back to the store since, and if that assistant sees me, they make a point of standing very close to me when I use the self checkout, so I've obviously had my card marked now as a shoplifter.

Another one of my household was tackled after using a self checkout at Tesco. In my opinion they were physically assaulted as the assistant patted then down and shoved their arms inside my family members sleeves to see if they had concealed any goods, which of course they hadn't.

This sort of thing is happening a lot now.

The app or the handheld requests it as soon as you scan the QR to check out. Definitely racial profiling at play.

I consider myself white and I have been stopped several times in just 1 week.

My belief is that you get identified when the smartshop handheld is released from the rack and a system of CCTV cameras keep following you around the shop, so the computer try to identify from the images if you take something from the shelf and your handheld register any activity.... BUT If you take something from the shelf, walk away 4 steps (for example) and do scan it later, then it will be too late because the system has already been triggered for reviewing your shopping bag.

That is my theory of what is happening. Nothing related to race like it was suggested from the starting comment of this thread.