Cardiff Man Wrongly Accused of Theft After Facial Recognition Error Triggers Privacy Complaint

A Cardiff man has filed a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office after being wrongly accused of theft in a store using facial recognition software.

The case is now drawing wider attention to the unchecked spread of biometric surveillance in everyday retail environments.

On 29 April 2025, Byron Long, 66, arrived at the B&M outlet in Cardiff Bay Retail Park expecting an ordinary shopping trip.

Instead, he was approached by staff and told he was barred from the premises. In front of other customers, he was accused of stealing £75 ($101) worth of goods during a visit earlier that month.

That accusation was entirely false. During the visit in question on 9 April, Long had bought a single item: a £7 ($9.50) packet of cat treats. He paid for them in full. He later obtained CCTV footage showing himself at the checkout in a Red Bull Formula 1 jacket, clearly completing the purchase.

“It was a horrible experience, and I haven’t been back to the store since. The incident has had a very serious impact on my mental health, which is very fragile anyway, and I am now very anxious whenever I go shopping,” Long said, as reported by Nation Cymru.

The misidentification came from Facewatch, a private firm contracted by retailers to run facial recognition scans on customers. Images from Long’s previous visit were processed and matched to a database of alleged offenders. That match triggered the alert that led B&M staff to accuse him.

B&M later acknowledged the error, issuing a written apology and stating: “Our B&M store and security teams have a duty of care to all our customers and to our company, and this includes challenging people that they believe are potentially shoplifting. This is an extremely difficult task, and sadly we don’t always get it right; your case would be one of these instances…We can confirm your data has been removed from Facewatch.”

They also offered a £25 ($34) voucher as compensation, an offer Long flatly rejected.

Facewatch responded to the incident by suspending the user who had submitted the incorrect data. Michele Bond, the company’s Head of Incident Review and Data Protection Enquiries, said: “Facewatch Incident data is submitted by authorized users, who must confirm the accuracy of the information provided. Once the error was identified, the user responsible was immediately suspended from using the Facewatch system.”

Long has since taken the matter to Big Brother Watch, a civil liberties group focused on privacy and surveillance. The organization has now submitted a complaint to the ICO on his behalf.

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Fox News host on mentally ill people who commit crimes: “Just kill them”

LAWRENCE JONES (FOX HOST):  We don’t have to — we feel so compassionate because you see the mental health crisis happening.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (FOX HOST): You just get — exactly.

JONES  But it’s not our job — we shouldn’t have to live in fear while they figure out what is going on right there.

EARHARDT: Right, right.

JONES: Put him in a mental institution, put him in a jail, and you guys figure it out. But people having to duck and dive on the trains and the buses, walking through the street, this is one case, but this is happening all across the country, and it’s not a money issue. They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don’t want to take the programs, a lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you and — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That’s the way it has to be now.

BRIAN KILMEADE (FOX HOST): Or involuntary lethal injection.

JONES: Yeah.

KILMEADE : Or something. Just kill them.

EARHARDT: Yeah, Brian, why did it have to get to this point?

KILMEADE: Right, I would say this, we are not voting for the right people. In North Carolina, wake up. You can’t put — keep putting these people in power. They woke up in Los Angeles, they got a stronger D.A. They woke up and they got rid of Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. Hopefully they will get rid of this terrible guy Alvin Bragg in New York. And now it’s up to the people in the election which is whoever is up in November and that Senate seat that belongs to Thom Tillis who by the way yesterday said I don’t want any help from the federal government to bring crime under control in cities like Charlotte. That’s your decision. But Michael Whatley or you could have Governor Cooper. Governor Cooper gave you these terrible laws. Mike Whatley wouldn’t. And he ran the RNC. These are the people in North Carolina. Purple leaning red state. They got a big choice. On this element, it is political. Because it’s political because politics has to change this.

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US Condemns Prosecution of Finnish Lawmaker Over Bible Verse Tweet

Finland’s prosecution of Päivi Räsänen has drawn sharp condemnation from the US State Department, which labeled the charges “baseless” and included a Bible verse in a rare public gesture of support.

This comes as Finland’s Supreme Court prepares to hear a case widely regarded as a test of whether expressing religious beliefs can be treated as a criminal act in a democratic nation.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor made its position clear on X, stating: “In a democracy, no one should face trial for peacefully sharing their beliefs. The case against Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen, which accuses her of hate speech for simply posting a Bible verse, is baseless, as two courts have unanimously found.”

The post included a verse from Matthew 5:11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

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HORROR: Illegal Alien Released by Biden Admin Beheads Motel Manager In Dallas, Kicks Severed Head, Tosses it in Dumpster

An illegal alien who was released from ICE custody by the Biden Administration beheaded a motel manager in Old East Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday.

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, an illegal alien from Cuba, was released into the interior of the US on January 13, 2025, just one week before Trump was sworn into office.

Cobos-Martinez used a machete to repeatedly hack the victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, 50, and then beheaded him.

According to Fox News, Cobos-Martinez was caught on surveillance video kicking the victim’s severed head in the parking lot, then picking it up and tossing it into a dumpster.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said Cobos-Martinez has a prior criminal history of:

False imprisonment in CA (unknown disposition)
Indecency with a child in Texas (dismissed)
Grand theft of vehicle in Florida (dismissed)
Carjacking & false imprisonment in CA (acquitted on carjacking, convicted of false imprisonment).

Cobos-Martinez was charged with capital murder, Fox 4 reported.

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Longtime head of Mexican megachurch is indicted in New York on federal sex trafficking charges

The longtime head of a Mexican megachurch who is serving more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing young followers has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking for allegedly victimizing members of the church for decades, authorities said Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in New York returned the indictment alleging that Naasón Joaquín García, 56, and five others exploited the church for decades to enable the systemic sexual abuse of children and women for the sexual gratification of García and his father, who died in 2014.

The newly unsealed indictment said the criminal activity included the creation of photos and videos of child sexual abuse.

García was taken into federal custody early Wednesday in Chino, California, where he is serving a more than 16-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 to two state counts

His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

García is the head of La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World), which claims to have 5 million followers worldwide. Believers consider him to be the “apostle” of Jesus Christ.

Prosecutors in California have said that he used his spiritual sway to have sex with girls and young women who were told it would lead to their salvation – or damnation if they refused.

Besides García, one defendant charged in the case was taken into custody in Los Angeles while another was arrested in Chicago, authorities said. Three others were at large.

According to the indictment, two of the defendants and others tried to destroy evidence and prevent victims of the sexual abuse from speaking to law enforcement after García was arrested.

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Good Guy with a Gun Turns the Tables on 7-Eleven Robbers in Florida

A Florida robbery Saturday ended up far from whatever two men had expected after one victim grabbed his gun.

The incident took place at about 7 p.m. in Dania Beach, according to WTVJ-TV.

Two robberies took place at a 7-Eleven. A victim was robbed at gunpoint in the store’s parking lot.

Justin Kessel, 19, is suspected of that crime, police said.

The suspect then entered the store, where a clerk was robbed. So far, everything was going according to plan.

But while the suspect was robbing the store, the victim decided he had had enough of being a victim and went to his car to retrieve his gun.

As the suspect left the store, instead of his getaway vehicle, he found the robbery victim with a gun. The suspect was shot by the victim, who fired multiple shots at him.

The victim then kept his gun on the suspect while waiting for police. However, while he was waiting, the driver of the getaway vehicle entered the picture.

The victim said a Honda CR-V attempted to run him over, but he was able to avoid the vehicle. The robbery victim then fired more shots, hitting the vehicle.

Kessel was taken into custody by police.

Police later found the vehicle that had been shot at during the incident.

Melvin Presley, 40, was found wounded in the vehicle. Presley had multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

A man identified only as Rodney told reporters the incident happened quickly.

“I live right around the corner and it is scary,” he said. “The guy was robbing the place, tried to rob one of the customers and when he come back out, the other guy in the car shot him.”

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Trump Calls for Quick Trial and DEATH for “ANIMAL” who Murdered Irina Zarutzka – “There Can be No Other Option!”

President Trump made a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, calling for the death penalty for Decarlos Brown Jr., a black man who murdered murdered 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in what was likely a hate crime. 

The Trump Administration is seeking either life in prison or death for the deranged murderer after federally charging him federally for the murder.

“There can be no other option,” but death, Trump said this morning.

Trump also addressed the senseless murder from the Oval Office on Tuesday, vowing to make America safe again and calling out radical left judges, politicians, and activists for promoting the “depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders.”

“We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand,” the President said.

WATCH:

Trump: For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people, really, very, very innocent people. In every place they control, radical left judges, politicians, and activists, they’ve adopted a policy of catch and release for thugs and killers. In Charlotte, North Carolina, we saw the results of these policies when a 23-year-old woman, who came here from Ukraine met her bloody end on a public train. And here’s a picture of it. This is the picture of it. And this is a picture of the woman, a beautiful young girl that never had problems in life, with a magnificent future in this country.

And now she’s dead. She was slaughtered by a deranged monster who was roaming free after 14 prior arrests. We cannot allow a depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders to continue spreading destruction and death throughout our country. We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand. 24 of the top 25 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrat mayors. 50 people were murdered in Chicago in recent weeks, with hundreds being shot. And it’s time to stop this madness. The people of our country need to insist on protection, safety, law, and order.

We have proven that it can be done because we did it right here in DC, District of Columbia. The capital of America was a blood thirsty, horrible, dangerous place, one of the worst, and now it’s a crime free city, and we’re going to keep it that way. It can be done. It can happen fast. All we want is— please, Mr. President, we need help. Chicago needs help. Other cities need help. We’ll do what has to be done, because we’re going to make America safe again, and that includes our big cities. We’re going to make those cities, safe. Thank you.

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The Monster Speaks: Decarlos Brown Jr. Breaks His Silence, Gives an Insane Excuse Why He Murdered Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska in Cold Blood 

The monster who killed a young woman who arrived in America from her war-torn nation has broken his silence, and his excuse for what happened should infuriate any reasonable person.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was brutally murdered last month by a low-life thug in Charlotte, North Carolina, who had no business walking free to begin with. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department revealed Zarutska suffered multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the East/West Boulevard light rail station at 10 P.M. ET on August 22.

Police identified 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. as the person responsible for Zarutska’s death. He has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

On Friday, WBTV obtained shocking surveillance video showing how Brown committed his horrendous act of violence. Additional footage in recent days has also leaked online, revealing an even more gruesome and evil attack.

During a phone call with his sister, which was shared with the Daily Mail, Brown offered this excuse for what happened: he claimed that he had no control over what happened because the federal government put material in his body.

Knowing her brother was off his rocker, she demanded why he picked Zarutska out of everyone. Brown could only say that the material lashed out at her.

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Psycho Charlotte train suspect reveals motive for slaughtering Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska —  as he offers chilling words from jail

Accused killer Decarlos Brown Jr. told his family he stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death on board a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, because he believed she was reading his mind, his sister has claimed — as his chilling words from jail are revealed.

Tracey Brown, who was assaulted by her older brother in a 2022 attack that saw him bite her and break a door, said he is a paranoid schizophrenic who told her multiple times that the government had implanted a chip in him.

“A person that is hearing voices in their head and believes the world is against them, they’re going to break. And I think that night he broke,” she told CNN.

Disturbing audio of Brown’s phone conversation with his sister from jail captures his rambling explanation for why he attacked the innocent woman. Brown can be heard telling his sister that “the material in his body” — not he — had killed Iryna, according to audio from a call made on Aug. 28, six days after the murder, and shared with the Daily Mail.

“I hurt my hand, stabbing her. I don’t even know the lady. I never said not one word to the lady at all. That’s scary, ain’t it. Why would somebody stab somebody for no reason?” Brown is heard saying.

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Ignored by media, enabled by Dems: how soft-on-crime policies unleashed murder of Ukrainian refugee

According to most legacy mainstream news outfits, the horrific murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was not worthy of a headline. The attention from “MAGA influencers seeking to elevate the issue of violent urban crime and accuse mainstream media of under-covering” is instead the focal point of reporting by outlets like Axios

On August 22, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who escaped war to start anew in the U.S., was viciously stabbed to death with a pocket knife in what appeared to be a random attack on a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail train. The suspect, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., a homeless black man with a long history of evading serious charges due to mental health claims, was apprehended and charged with first-degree murder, fueling public outrage over lax crime policies and judicial failures.

The media blackout was shocking to many in the independent news sphere. The murder took place two and a half weeks ago, on August 22. CNN, Reuters, The New York Times, Associated Press, NBC News, ABC News and The Washington Post took 17 days to report on it. It took North Carolina’s Democrat Mayor Josh Stein the same amount of time to comment on the murder. 

Leftists try to flush Zarutska’s murder down the memory-hole

Wikipedia is under fire for trying to remove a page about the murder. Editors at the site are feuding internally after attempts to suppress the story by proposing the newly created page about Zarutska’s killing be deleted, arguing it lacked sufficient notability for inclusion.

Critics, including Elon Musk, who called the murder a “hate crime,” and Piers Morgan, who condemned the “senseless, unprovoked” murder, have slammed Wikipedia’s deletion attempt as censorship, pointing to minimal mainstream media attention. 

The radio-silence from traditional media up until Monday reflects a broader attempt to ignore crime when the victim is white and the alleged perpetrator is black. 

In another instance over the weekend, beloved Auburn University veterinary sciences professor Dr. Julie Gard Schnuelle was hacked to death with a machete while walking her dog in Kiesel Park, Alabama—a location she frequented daily. The 59-year-old retired professor’s red Ford F-150 truck was stolen by the attacker. The following day, a black male, 28-year-old Harold Rashad Dabney III from Montgomery, was arrested and charged with capital murder after police located the stolen vehicle nearby and linked him to the homicide.

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