Aotearoa / New Zealand

Two multinational companies with close ties to the New Zealand police have teamed up on anti-crime surveillance inside stores.

It comes as New Zealand supermarkets, in step with overseas trends, are bringing in body-worn cameras to deter rising rates of assaults on staff.

Foodstuffs said just 16 of its 500 stores across the country used bodycams "to help keep team members and customers safe". Other stores used other measures.

Its North Island stores reported over 5000 incidents in the first three months this year - one a week per store on average.

"Footage is typically only recorded when the device is activated, with recordings later exported to secure systems.

"Footage from bodycams of retail crime incidents is usually only uploaded to Auror following a legitimate request by police, and always only by authorised team members for the purposes of combatting retail crime."

It would only be shared if police requested it for an investigation, the company said.