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Asda has strongly denied claims made by a shopper that it uses facial recognition technology in its self-checkouts to collect customer data for targeted advertising. The denial comes after a video shared on Facebook by a regular customer discussing the issue went viral.

The video was viewed more than 360,000 times on Facebook and in it, the woman complains about new self-checkouts being installed at her local Asda. She shared her “point of view” about the still cameras, which show people themselves as they scan her products.

According to The Sun, the woman said: “What are basically going on, and this is my point of view, you have a picture of your face, your debit card information, and everything you’ve purchased. Now this is, as far as I’m concerned, targeted advertising …But I have never given anyone permission to take my data in that way.”

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She added: “And under GDPR, unless you’ve given permission, they can’t.”

However, Asda confirmed to Full Fact that this was not the case and that the camera and screens are there solely to deter thieves from stealing. He added that they don’t actually store any recording that appears on them, apart from the store’s traditional CCTV systems.

“We don’t have technology in our stores that can take an image, store it, and then compare it to other images to detect when a ‘recognized’ face walks into our store,” a store representative told Full Fact.

“The cameras use AI to focus on faces, you may see a green box around the face, but again, this footage is not recorded or stored.”

The post shared by the woman has now been flagged as fake by Full Fact experts. However, it has already been shared more than 8,000 times and has almost 10,000 likes and 1,300 comments.

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