Your Grocery Store Is Scanning Your Face. Here's Who's Doing It.

TL;DR: In January 2026, signs appeared at Wegmans stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn notifying customers their faces, eyes, and voices might be scanned and stored. The grocery chain admitted it runs facial recognition "in a small fraction" of stores to spot people flagged for "misconduct." Wegmans at least tells you. When the ACLU asked 20 major retailers (Walmart, Kroger, Home Depot, Target, Costco, CVS, and others) whether they scan customer faces, most refused to answer. Lowe's confirmed it does. Connecticut lawmakers are drafting a bill to ban retail facial recognition entirely. Until then, you're likely being watched without knowing it.

The Signs at Wegmans

Gothamist reporters spotted them first: small signs near the entrances of Wegmans stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The text was clinical: "Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. collects, retains, converts, stores or shares customers' biometric identifier information, which may include" facial recognition, eye scans, and voiceprints.

That was January 2026. The story went viral. Customers like Melanie Martin told reporters she'd boycott. Social media exploded with people who'd shopped at Wegmans for years without knowing cameras were matching their faces against a database.

Wegmans eventually issued a statement confirming the signs were real. The company said it uses facial recognition "in a small fraction" of stores "located in communities that exhibit an elevated risk." Translation: stores with higher shoplifting.

Here's the thing about Wegmans: they told you. New York City requires disclosure. So Wegmans posted signs. Most other cities don't require anything. Most other retailers don't say a word.

Who Else Is Scanning Your Face?

The ACLU wanted to know. In 2018, they surveyed 20 of America's largest retailers: Do you use facial recognition on customers?

Only two gave straight answers.

Lowe's: Yes. The company admitted it uses facial recognition to identify suspected shoplifters. They claim they don't keep data on people who don't match their database.
Ahold Delhaize (Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford): No. Explicitly confirmed they don't use the technology.
Everyone else: Refused to answer.

Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, CVS, Walgreens, Target, Best Buy, McDonald's, Macy's: all declined to respond or cited "proprietary" and "competitive" reasons for staying silent. 18 wouldn't give a straight answer (13 refused outright; 5 neither confirm nor deny).

Home Depot told the ACLU they couldn't answer for "competitive reasons." That's odd, because Home Depot previously told Fortune magazine it doesn't use the technology. Changed their story, or changed their tech stack?

What Wegmans Actually Collects

An investigation by Investigative Post in Buffalo laid out the scope of Wegmans surveillance, and it goes beyond faces:

Parking lot cameras capture license plates as you pull in
In-store cameras track your movements through the aisles
The Wegmans app and store WiFi collect IP addresses and geolocation
Browser cookies track your web activity before and during shopping
Credit card numbers, purchase history, and SNAP benefit usage are logged

Wegmans operates 114 stores across nine states. They've confirmed facial recognition exists at NYC locations. They refuse to say whether their 11 stores in Erie County or 17 in greater Rochester run the same systems.

Wegmans claims it only uses facial recognition to spot "persons of interest": people flagged by their asset protection team for incidents on their property, or referrals from law enforcement for criminal or missing persons cases.

How long do they keep your face? Wegmans won't say. "Only as long as necessary for security purposes," they claim. What's "necessary"? They won't define it, citing security reasons.

The Business Model: Free Tech for Your Face

Retailers get surveillance technology cheap, or free. Remember Biometrica, the company whose deal with Milwaukee Police just collapsed? Their pitch: give us access to your mugshots, and we'll give you facial recognition software at no cost.

The same model works in retail. Vendors offer "loss prevention" systems that scan every face walking through the door. The cost is your biometric data, which feeds databases that grow more valuable with every shopper.

Kroger announced plans to use facial recognition for "targeted coupons": personalizing prices based on who you are. They backed off after public outcry, but their electronic shelf labels (slated for 2,600 stores by 2026) make the infrastructure for personalized pricing trivially easy.

Walmart piloted facial recognition to spot shoplifters. They won't confirm current use. Their privacy policy lets them.

Connecticut Wants to Ban It

After the Wegmans story broke, two Connecticut state senators said enough.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff and Senator James Maroney announced they're introducing legislation to ban facial recognition in retail establishments. The bill is part of a broader data privacy package for the 2026 session.

"Connecticut residents shouldn't have to worry about giving up information about themselves while grocery shopping," Duff told reporters.

Maroney added: "As technology continues to advance, we must be proactive and step in to protect consumers from surveillance they did not consent to."

The senators were motivated partly by a CT Insider report that Wegmans refused to disclose whether its Norwalk, Connecticut location uses the same facial recognition system deployed in New York.

The bill is still in drafting. If passed, Connecticut would join Illinois as one of the few states with meaningful biometric privacy protection for consumers.

Why This Matters

Jeramie Scott from the Electronic Privacy Information Center put it bluntly: "There's just a lack of protections in place to actually ensure what they say they're doing today is actually what they're doing."

Retailers promise they only use your face to catch shoplifters. But:

Their databases include everyone who's ever been arrested, not just convicted criminals
Facial recognition algorithms have documented bias, misidentifying people of color at higher rates
Nothing stops them from selling data to third parties, despite what their privacy policies claim today
Biometric data can't be changed if breached. You can get a new credit card. You can't get a new face.

The ACLU's position: "Customers should not have their faces scanned without their permission, and they certainly shouldn't be scanned without their knowledge."

Most customers have no idea.

What You Can Actually Do

1. Ask directly. Walk up to customer service: "Does this store use facial recognition or collect biometric data on customers?" Make them say it out loud. If they say yes (or won't answer) consider shopping elsewhere.

2. Send an opt-out request. Write to the retailer: "I am a customer who does not consent to the collection or storage of my biometric data, including facial recognition, at your stores." It probably won't work, but it creates a paper trail.

3. Check your state's laws. Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) requires written consent before collecting biometric data and lets you sue for violations. California's CCPA requires disclosure of biometric collection. Most states have nothing.

4. Support legislation. Connecticut's bill could become a model. Contact your state legislators and ask them to introduce similar measures. Groups like the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (stopspying.org) track biometric privacy legislation nationwide.

5. Vote with your feet. Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant, and Hannaford (all owned by Ahold Delhaize) have explicitly confirmed they don't use facial recognition. That's worth knowing when you decide where to shop.

The Bottom Line

You deserve to know when a store is scanning your face. Right now, only a few cities and states require disclosure. Most retailers hide behind vague privacy policies and "competitive" excuses.

Wegmans got caught because New York made them post signs. The question is: what's happening at the stores that don't have to tell you anything?

References

Published: February 27, 2026