A Coles supermarket has been blasted as ‘creepy’ and ‘dystopian’ after a customer spotted dozens of security cameras hanging above the check-out area.
The shopper took a photo in the store at Epping, in Melbourne’s north, showing the vast array of cameras pointing down from the high ceiling.
The photograph was shared on Reddit on Monday with a tongue-in-cheek swipe.
‘I don’t think my local Coles has installed enough cameras,’ they wrote.
Social media users were shocked by the extent of the security measures intended to prevent shoplifting and customers not swiping all their purchases at the unstaffed check-outs.
‘Looks like they really hate their customers,’ one wrote.
Another asked: ‘Hey Coles Epping – how many more cameras do you need?’.
‘I get that cameras are necessary but why so many? I mean they could achieve the same thing with so fewer. Is it just to deter theft? Kind of creepy,’ one said.
Other shoppers likened the scene to a ‘gaming floor at a casino’ and even ‘an art piece’.
The sore was also described as ‘over the top’ and ‘dystopian’.
‘All the cameras make it feel kinda dehumanising in a way,’ one wrote.
‘Just getting the store ready for when they have zero staffed checkouts,’ another said.
‘It feels like I’m going through a maximum security military checkpoint,’ another added.
But some said the grocery giant was justified in having such security measures.
‘Having cameras over the checkout and tills where cash theft/robbery, harm/abuse to staff and external crime is most likely to occur…Doesn’t seem that unreasonable,’ one wrote.
One shopper added: ‘These cameras are there for my protection as well as theirs. Too many people stealing, too many people abusing other people, too many people turning nasty. It’s 2024.’
‘If someone you cared about got punched in the face at Coles, you’d be demanding camera footage for the police,’ they said.
Some Aussie shoppers also thought the location of the store might be a reason why there appeared to be extra cameras.
‘It’s Epping, need we say more. It had the highest amount of thefts and eshays,’ one wrote.
Another added: ‘I’m surprised the cameras are not stolen yet’.
Others suggested it was not the customers the camera were monitoring, but the check-out staff.
‘Many of these cameras are actually to monitor staff and what they’re doing at the tills,’ one wrote.
A Coles spokesperson told Daily Mail that the safety of their staff and customers is their ‘top priority’.
‘While most of our customers do the right thing, unfortunately a small number don’t,’ they said.
‘We have a range of security measures in place to reduce theft from our stores including security personnel and surveillance technologies such as CCTV.
‘Any CCTV footage that is recorded, is done so in line with all relevant laws and Coles’ Privacy Policy.’
Daily Mail also understands it is necessary to have more security cameras in some of the supermarket’s older stores, such as Epping, to support the range of service and loss prevention technologies.