There's No Opt-Out: Wegmans Is Now Scanning Your Face at the Grocery Store [View all]

Your weekly grocery run just became a biometric data collection event. Wegmans Food Markets quietly expanded its facial recognition program from a 2024 employee pilot to full customer surveillance at select Manhattan and Brooklyn locations. The twist? They scrapped their earlier promises about deleting your data.

The Rochester-based chain now collects facial recognition, eye scans, and voiceprints from every person entering affected stores. No opt-out. No meaningful consent mechanism. Just mandatory participation if you need milk and eggs.

From Pilot Program to Privacy Erosion
Wegmans removed data deletion assurances when expanding biometric collection to customers.

The company’s 2024 pilot focused exclusively on employees and included explicit data deletion commitments. The customer expansion ditched those protections entirely. Wegmans now retains biometric data “for as long as necessary for security purposes” but won’t specify what that means, citing “security reasons.”

Posted signage complies with New York City’s 2021 biometric privacy law, which sounds protective until you realize it only requires disclosure signs. The law includes zero enforcement mechanisms—like installing smoke detectors without batteries.

https://www.gadgetreview.com/theres-no-opt-out-wegmans-is-now-scanning-your-face-at-the-grocery-store