H&M pilots staff body cameras in the UK amid rising crime

Other retailers including Tesco, Co-op, Poundland and Go Outdoors have also rolled out the technology to protect staff.

Shoplifting offences reached a record high in England and Wales last year, as 516,971 incidents were recorded by the police.

This was a rise from 429,873 in 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics. The number of violent and abusive incidents recorded per day hit more than 2,000 a day in the year to April 2024, according to the BRC.

A H&M spokesperson told The Mail on Sunday: “We’re testing this new technology in a three-store pilot to assess what beneficial impact it may have, along with proper staff customer service training, on de-escalating and reducing incidents for the safety of both our colleagues and customers.”

The bodycam trials are taking place at a store in Edinburgh and in London’s Wood Green and Beckton.

The news arrives after retailers such as Boots, Primark, Tesco, M&S, Morrisons and Greggs said last week that they would start uploading CCTV and photos of prolific shoplifters into a new database to be shared with police.

The aim is that the database called Auror will provide security guards with watchlists to bar repeat offenders.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper said last week: “We want more retailers, more organisations, working together on schemes like this so that we can have that partnership, so that you’re tackling the crime but also getting the neighbourhood police and the reassurance in local communities.

“This hasn’t happened for too long, too often. People have just been working separately, in silos, and also this sort of crime has been treated as low-level. It’s not. It has a huge impact on local economies and on that sense of safety at the heart of communities.”