Fuel crime prevention and debt recovery platform Forecourt Eye is offering its Scottish retail partners free access to a new Crime Management Platform with the option of sending instant alerts directly to Police Scotland via Facewatch Live Facial Recognition, the firm has announced.
The opportunity follows a partnership between Forecourt Eye and Facewatch that aims to help retailers combat rising fuel theft alongside increasing incidents of abuse and violence directed at frontline staff.
Retailers that don’t use Facewatch live recognition can still use the platform to manage incidents, package evidence, and submit reports to the police.
However, operators choosing to introduce Facewatch Live Facial Recognition alongside Forecourt Eye’s ANPR technology will, for the first time, be able to combine vehicle recognition on the forecourt with facial recognition inside the store, creating complementary layers of protection from the moment a vehicle arrives on site until the customer leaves.
The collaboration brings together Forecourt Eye’s private database of vehicles linked to fuel theft – which now exceeds 300,000 registrations – with Facewatch‘s national database of known retail offenders.
New analysis from Forecourt Eye reveals that unpaid fuel incidents, including drive-offs and No Means of Payment declarations, have increased by 20% in the five months following the start of the Iran conflict.
Data from 550 forecourts shows incidents averaging 189 per day in the five months after 28 February, up from 158 per day in the previous five months.
Extrapolated across the UK’s 8,350 forecourts, daily incidents are estimated to have risen from around 2,400 to 2,872. Over the same period, the volume of unpaid fuel increased by 24% to 108,900 litres per day, while its value jumped 48% to approximately £194,000 per day.
At the current rate, forecourts could lose an estimated £70.7 million annually in unpaid fuel, £22.9 million more than before the conflict, underscoring the growing cost burden facing operators.
Forecourt Eye Managing Director Michelle Henchoz explained that the move enables the firm’s 2,000+ UK operators to manage fuel theft, shop crime and incident reporting to the police through one integrated system, with the option to join Facewatch’s Live Facial Recognition network, currently protecting thousands of stores across the UK.
She said: “Our customers have told us they increasingly want one place to manage everything from unpaid fuel and ANPR intelligence through to shop theft, violence and police reporting.
“This partnership delivers exactly that while fitting seamlessly into the way they already work. As offending becomes more organised and more sophisticated, operators need joined-up technology that helps them protect both their forecourt and their convenience store.”
Nick Fisher, Chief Executive of Facewatch, said: “The distinction between fuel crime and retail crime has largely disappeared. Modern forecourts face the same prolific offenders, violence and abuse experienced across the wider retail sector.
“By combining Forecourt Eye’s expertise on the forecourt with Facewatch‘s crime management capability, we’re giving operators a single platform to prevent crime, manage investigations and help police tackle repeat and violent offenders.”
The move forms part of Facewatch‘s wider strategy to build an integrated crime management ecosystem that starts with preventing crime before it happens, while supporting the national effort to tackle prolific offenders through intelligence sharing, incident reporting and police-ready evidence management under a single governance framework.
Gordon Balmer, Executive Director of the Petrol Retailers Association, welcomed the announcement: “Today’s forecourts are dealing with far more than fuel theft. Our members are reporting increasing levels of abuse and aggression towards colleagues who are simply doing their jobs and have no influence over the price displayed on the forecourt.
“Crime on Britain’s forecourts no longer begins and ends at the pump. Whether it is unpaid fuel, shop theft, organised crime, or unacceptable abuse of staff, operators need joined-up solutions that recognise how these issues increasingly overlap.
“Bringing together technologies that help retailers prevent crime, manage incidents and support police investigations is a positive step for the industry.”
