[btasker]

> Telling someone wrongly that they are a thief, in public, seems like libel

Slander.

Libel is published, Slander is spoken. If they put a picture of her on a sheet that said "shoplifter" and posted in on the wall (or the net), it'd be libel.

But, I don't think you'd win a case based on Slander either:

* you'd still need to show it was published to a third party (though as you say, maybe you had friends present) * They can show that they reasonably believed it to be true (the system told them so). Their wording then becomes incredibly important - did they say "you're a shoplifter" or "you've been identified by our shoplifter recognition system"

They might also try to argue that stopping shoplifting is in the public interest and that this was a statement of opinion related tot hat.

I agree though, if this happened to me, I'd definitely be sending a letter or two to dissuade them from making a similar mistake in future (I think I'd also be trying my luck with Facewatch given that their system disseminated that "information")

[ajb]

Yes, I'd forgotten that libel is published information.

Although, given that this is third party tech, maybe Facewatch counts as the publisher.

[davidhbolton]

Wouldn't there be a better outcome for those misidentified and publicly slandered and inconvenienced if they sued for stress? Some unlucky sod could have a heart attack from this.

[prepend]

Libel and slander must have malicious intent.

I think the better legal tactic would be defamation as it doesn’t require intent.