> 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")
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")