6 February 2026

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Bunnings’ scanning of every customer’s face was OK, says the ART, because it was for the “limited purpose” they’d chosen it for, and they “minimised the intrusion on privacy”. It’s a decision which will open the door for other retailers to follow. Unless it’s overturned on appeal.

Meanwhile, as Australia’s teen social media ban nears two months in operation, it seems to have been less of a drama than many thought. Countries from Spain to Türkiye to India look set to follow.

And what to make of SpaceX buying xAI? Click through and read about that and more...

Bunnings gets to use face recognition after all

The Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) has partially overturned a ban on using facial recognition in its stores to combat crime and staff abuse.

Back in 2024, Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind determined that the company had breached privacy laws by scanning customers’ faces without proper consent.

The ART decided different, but said the company could have done more to notify customers.

While the system scanned every customer’s face, or was intended to, the images and their analysis were deleted immediately after they were matched against a few hundred “enrolled individuals” who had committed or were suspected of committing theft or refund fraud, or who had threatened store staff or members of the public. Unless, of course, there was a match.

“Bunnings was entitled to use FRT [facial recognition technology] for the limited purpose of combatting very significant retail crime and protecting their staff and customers from violence, abuse and intimidation within its stores,” the ART wrote.

“Important factors in our decision included, first, the extent of retail crime being faced by Bunnings staff and customers and, second, the technological features of the FRT system which minimised the intrusion on privacy by permanently deleting collected sensitive information and by limiting its susceptibility to cyber-attack.”

Bunnings did cop a slap, however, for failing to have adequate privacy policies.

It remains to be seen whether the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) will appeal the decision.

UK store kicks out customer after false positive

“A man was instructed to leave a Sainsbury’s supermarket without explanation, after staff incorrectly identified him as an offender flagged by facial recognition software,” reports BBC News.

Sainsbury’s says it wasn’t a problem with the technology, but that store staff had approached the wrong customer.

Facewatch, the technology provider, confirmed that he wasn’t on their system. Everyone apologised, and he was offered a £75 Sainsbury’s voucher.

PREVIEWING THAILAND’S ELECTIONS: In my latest podcast we talk about Thai politics, this Sunday’s general election, and other news from South-East Asia in The 9pm 57 Varieties of Thai with Erin Cook. Look for The 9pm Edict in your podcast app.

The inevitable teen social media ban update

“I thought the ban would be, like, way more strict, but it ended up being really, like, chill, like, nothing happened,” 14-year-old Adyan told ABC News.

“It’s completely useless,” he said, because Snapchat’s face scanner was happy to accept him as 16 or older.

Snapchat says it’s blocked more than 400,000 accounts, but also says there’s “significant gaps” and “real technical limitations to accurate and dependable age verification”. You don’t say.

The Guardian has also been speaking with some teens, and they say it’s no big deal, either because they can work around it, or because they can still share their lives in other ways.

But according to EducationDaily, the hidden cost of the ban is widening the educational divide.

“Students in well-resourced schools who lose access to social media learning communities can replace these resources with school-supplied alternatives. In contrast, students in already disadvantaged, under-resourced schools cannot,” they write.

Also in the news

• It’s an important story but I'll leave you to read it for yourself. The platforms used by real estate agents to upload documents from renters and property owners are horribly, horribly vulnerable, exposing vast amounts of personal information. As digital rights advocate Samantha Floreani asks, “Why should renters like me have to trade away our privacy just to get a roof over our heads?”

• One in four Australian students don’t have a home computer. Not-for-profit WorkVentures says businesses could help close the gap through device donation programs.

• Meta failed to act on Australian influencer Dinah’s illegal offshore crypto-gambling promotions.

• Crypto platforms spent big on political donations last year, as did a bunch of tech companies and their leaders.

• Valentine’s Day is eight days away — you’ve got my email address — so the National Anti-Scam Centre has released an update on romance scams.

• Lycamobile has paid a $376,200 penalty for failing to adequately carry out ID verification when transferring mobile phone numbers. Customers lost at least $175,000, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

• Former NSW digital services minister Victor Dominello and former White House AI adviser Carmem Domingues are continuing their series on technology in government at The Mandarin.

• Australia’s Tech Policy Design Institute has launched The Tech Policy Commons, “a blog for policymakers and technologists who seek diverse perspectives”.

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Elsewhere

• Elon Musk’s SpaceX has bought xAI (gift link), effectively merging the two companies. In a bizarre update, SpaceX talks about forming “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth” and their intention “to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!”

• French authorities have raided X’s office in Paris, looking for the platform’s potential complicity in crimes including Holocaust denial, child pornography, and more.

• An excellent lede from ABC News: “AI bots have created a religion, but experts say that's not the scary part.” Moltbook is a social network for chatbots, and this is just one of the weirdnesses from its first week of operations. “In one infamous post generated by AI, the bots discussed the ‘total purge’ of humans.” It’s a good thing these bots exist only in the virtual world. But wait...

• Software engineer Alexander Liteplo, has founded RentAHuman.ai, a platform for AI agents to “search, book, and pay humans for physical-world tasks.” As the company’s tag line says, “Robots need your body”.

• Moltbook has also exposed a bunch of data, including 35,000 email addresses, 1.5 million API authentication tokens, and private messages between the AI agents.

• From the Lowy Institute, some advice on what to ask when choosing a career in the age of AI.

• Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has announced the country’s own teen social media ban. Elon Musk has of course called him a tyrant. Meanwhile sources say Greece will soon introduce a ban, as is Türkiye, and maybe the Netherlands. India might too.

• TikTok’s first week of American ownership was a disaster, reports the Guardian.

MUSIC POD GETS NEW HOME: After the sudden disappearance of its original hosting provider, Another Untitled Music Podcast is moving to Mixcloud. The first pilot episode has been reposted there, and the rest of the existing episodes will follow soon. All episodes are also available on YouTube. New episodes will appear in March.

Inquiries of note

• The Senate Economics Legislation Committee has kicked off a review of the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. Submissions close 23 February.

What’s next?

The House of Representatives will sit Monday to Thursday next week, while the Senate will be holding Supplementary Estimates hearings.

As always, new bills may be introduced at any time according to the needs of the news cycle — sorry, I mean for the good government of the nation.

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