Walgreens Workers Will Wear Bodycams in Some NYC Stores, but Shoppers Don’t Want to Be “Pharma Seen”
(New York Post, Mar 05, 2026)
Walgreens is piloting voluntary body-worn cameras for some employees in select stores, framing the rollout as a safety and de-escalation measure amid broader retail surveillance expansion. The move lands as New York City policymakers debate tighter limits on biometric surveillance (including facial recognition and other identifiers) in public accommodations, highlighting how retail security tech is increasingly intersecting with biometric governance and consent expectations.
UK High Streets Turn to Facial Recognition in Fight Against Shoplifting
(Financial Times, Mar 05, 2026)
UK retailers are expanding use of facial recognition on high streets as a biometric tool to deter repeat offenders and respond to rising shoplifting and assaults on staff, with industry figures citing shoplifting reaching a record £2.2bn. Access to the full text is paywalled on FT, so if you paste the article body (or key paragraphs), I can tighten the summary to match its specific examples, vendors, and governance details.
Home Office Signs £49 Million Biometric Deal
(UKAuthority, Mar 05, 2026)
The UK Home Office awarded a five-year, £49 million contract to Mastek to support, maintain, and enhance core biometric platforms including the Biometrics Services Gateway and the National DNA Database, with managed engineering and cloud platform services. The systems support identity and immigration workflows (passport/visa processing, asylum routes), DNA search and match caseworking, and enforcement operations, and also provide biometric services to policing, other UK departments, and international partners as part of a broader modernization program.
Telangana Govt to Deploy Facial Recognition to Identify Ineligible Welfare Beneficiaries
(The Morning Voice, Mar 05, 2026)
Telangana will expand facial recognition to verify welfare beneficiaries and remove ineligible recipients, folding the approach into a 99-day “Praja Palana – Pragati Pranalika” program running March 6–June 12. The state says facial biometric checks used in social security pensions already led to removal of nearly 300,000 ineligible beneficiaries, and the broader program will add app-based monitoring and audits to tighten identity validation across government payouts.
The First Anti-AI Fashion Show in Barcelona: Clothing That Blocks Facial Recognition Created in a Neighborhood of Nou Barris
(Barcelona Secreta, Mar 05, 2026)
An “anti-AI” fashion show at Barcelona’s Canòdrom will showcase garments designed to confuse or block facial recognition, positioning clothing as a privacy countermeasure against biometric surveillance in public spaces. Workshops alongside the show focus on intervening in datasets and metadata used to train AI systems, framing bias mitigation and resistance to biometric tracking as part of a broader civic “tech self-defense” program.
