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Facial Recognition: The Key to Fighting Retail Theft?
FRT is 'absolutely necessary' to protect retail staff

Why Australia is in the middle of a shoplifting crime wave

Greg Bearup and Carrie LaFrenz discuss the rise in retail theft, why Victoria is ground zero, and whether facial recognition technology is the answer.

This type of organised theft has started to hit the profits of some of the biggest companies in the country and was the headline story of this year’s reporting season. It has reached such a crisis point that in the lead-up to Christmas, both the Victorian and West Australian governments have introduced new laws.

New laws were passed in Victoria just last week that aim to address this retail crime spike, and Western Australia is also toughening its rules. What are the states doing?

So in Victoria, new laws are in place ahead of the busy Christmas season, which is great news for retail. It will be an offence to assault or threaten a retail worker, and those charged could face up to five years in jail. A ram raid is where the criminal drives a vehicle actually into the shop and steals goods. This will now be recognised as an aggravated burglary, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail.

All of these laws are welcome news, but they were really first promised last year. So the government seems to be dragging its feet a little bit.

The Victorian government does have plans to introduce new laws to establish workplace protection orders against violent individuals, but that’s not happening until next year. They’re currently only in place in the ACT, but in Western Australia, the government is introducing similar laws. And this will allow courts to ban violent or threatening individuals for up to two years.

What about facial recognition technology? Why is that controversial, and will it become more common?

LaFrenz: The Retailers Association says it’s vital that regulators work with the retailers responsibly to deploy FRT to protect the frontline worker, which is facing a higher rate of violent crime. Bunnings and Kmart were sanctioned by the privacy commissioner for illegally capturing this data on hundreds of thousands of individuals in their stores. They are still proponents of FRT and say that it’s absolutely necessary to protect their staff.

Bunnings is now appealing against this finding, and every retailer is really watching this case very closely to see whether it gives them the green light to roll this out in their own stores. afr.com


Cargo Theft Makes Up 58% of Retail Theft Losses
Getting Organized Retail and Cargo Theft Right
Organized retail and cargo theft are public safety and consumer protection problems driven by a relatively small number of sophisticated criminal networks—not a general explosion in everyday shoplifting. These criminals exploit gaps in law, data, and enforcement coordination to move large volumes of goods and money across jurisdictions, often to finance other serious crimes.

Recent freight-industry analyses show that cargo theft accounts for approximately 58 percent of total retail-theft losses. Its dependence on interstate highways and multistate distribution networks underscores why federal attention is necessary.

Federal agencies define “organized retail theft” as large-scale theft and fraud carried out by criminal enterprises that steal in bulk from multiple stores and then resell or launder the proceeds through fencing operations, online marketplaces, and cross-border channels. But research reminds us that the story is more complicated than a simple “crime wave” narrative. While shoplifting has risen in some places and sectors, national trends and data quality are uneven, and not every theft problem relates to organized crime.

Organized retail and cargo theft are real, serious problems that affect workers, consumers, and communities. But if policymakers treat every shoplifting incident as organized crime, we will misallocate scarce resources, risk unnecessary confrontations, and miss the relatively small share of theft that actually drives the greatest harm. A coordinated, data-driven response grounded in accurate measurement, targeted enforcement, and clear safeguards is the best way to protect both public safety and the integrity of the retail and supply-chain economy. rstreet.org


Historic Homicide-Free Stretch for NYC
NYPD crime data: 12 consecutive days without an NYC homicide marks longest stretch in city history

The streak, from Nov. 25 through Dec. 7, tied a previous record set in 2015; citywide murders in November dropped 46.6% compared with 2024

New York City went 12 consecutive days without a homicide, matching the longest stretch without a murder in the city’s recorded history, NYPD statistics show. But the streak ended Sunday night when a 38-year-old man was shot and killed in the Bronx.

The streak, from Nov. 25 through Dec. 7, equaled a previous record set in 2015. It came during a year that saw significant decreases in violent crime across the city.

November marked a particularly low point for murders, with 16 homicides recorded during the month, tying the record low previously set in 2018. Queens and Staten Island reported zero murders in November, and overall murders dropped 46.6% compared to November 2024.

Through the first 11 months of the year, the city recorded its lowest number of shooting incidents and victims in recorded history, according to statistics through Dec. 1. The city’s Fall Zones initiative showed that shootings decreased 40% in designated neighborhoods when officers were deployed since the program began. police1.com


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AI's Retail Explosion
Is retail ready for the AI shopping shift?

As shoppers ask ChatGPT for inspiration, brands scramble to ensure their products appeal to the bots calling the shots

While traditional internet search, social media – especially TikTok and Instagram – and simply wandering a local high street will still be the main routes to presents for most this year, about a quarter of people in the UK are already using AI to find the right products, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

For brands appealing to younger people, the revolution is well under way: the rival advisory firm KPMG says as many as 30% of shoppers aged 25-34 are using AI to find products, compared with 1% of those aged over 65.

Asking a large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT or Gemini what you should get your father-in-law – rather than typing “whisky” or “socks” into Google or DuckDuckGo – may seem a small change in habits. However, it marks a sea change for retailers accustomed to paying search engines to promote their listings.

LLMs allow users to ask questions in conversational language, perhaps by speaking into their computer or phone. Instead of just providing a list of links, they offer specific suggestions with the potential for big sales for items that are regularly recommended.

The chatbots produce their responses by scraping the internet and inbuilt datasets for relevant information, with some sources given more trusted status than others.

Companies large and small are scrambling to adapt to this new world where the keywords and advertising deals previously central to web marketing hold less importance than the reviewers’ opinions, accurate availability information and product details read by LLMs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama.

The shake-up may create an opening for independent businesses to cut through online, but some big brands are concerned they will be lost in a wild west where it is unclear how to reach the consumer. Marketers must now appeal not only to shoppers directly but also to their AI bots. theguardian.com


Tariffs Impacting Small Businesses
Survey finds 54% of small business online retailers impacted by tariffs
Small business e-commerce owners are feeling the heat from tariffs — and some are raising prices as a result.

More than half (54%) of online retailers had to make significant changes because of tariffs, according to an Omnisend survey of 170 U.S.-based small business e-commerce business owners. Among all respondents, 39% have raised retail prices, 29% have shifted suppliers and 19% have cut the number of products they sell.

Among the retailers who have already increased prices:

• 27% raised prices by up to 5%;

• 52% raised prices by 5-10%; and

• About 20% raised prices by more than 10%.