Shoppers across Australia are raising serious concerns about the rise of automated “smart gates” inside major supermarkets, and many believe these systems could be breaking the law. The gates are marketed as theft-prevention technology, yet more and more customers say they are being physically stopped from leaving the store, held in place until a staff member releases them and in some cases injured by the gates closing on them. Today at the Carnes Hill Woolworths, I experienced exactly that.

After legally purchasing my items and heading toward the exit, the gate shut directly into my groin because it miscounted the people ahead of me. The impact was strong enough to cause burning pain and lingering discomfort in the lower right pelvis and thigh. This is not a soft barrier. It is a rigid, heavy, automated gate that can strike with real force. And it raises a legitimate question: how can a supermarket legally install a device that physically prevents customers from leaving?

Under Australian law, false imprisonment occurs when a person’s freedom of movement is restricted without consent and without lawful authority. A store cannot detain someone unless staff reasonably suspect theft and even then it must be handled by a human being. A machine cannot detain customers. A gate cannot decide who may exit. Yet this is exactly what is happening.

People regularly enter a store, find the item they want isn’t available, and then discover they are unable to leave. The gate remains locked. No purchase means no exit. Customers are forced to wait, sometimes for minutes, until a staff member manually presses a release button. They are held in the store until the supermarket allows them to leave. That fits the plain definition of restricting someone’s movement without their consent.

This is not a single incident. At Coles recently, I was also blocked from leaving after buying nothing. The gate refused to open. Staff took their time. I eventually climbed over the barrier. Staff shouted at me as though I had committed a crime when, in reality, I was exercising a basic right to exit a building I had entered legally. Social media is filled with similar reports. Gates malfunctioning, gates miscounting, gates blocking someone who has paid, gates refusing to open, gates injuring shoppers, gates requiring staff to come over and push a button so customers can be released.

Even if the intention is security, the effect is the same. Once a gate prevents you from leaving, even for a short time, your movement is being controlled by the store and not by you. That is where the law becomes relevant. A supermarket has no legal authority to physically confine people based on a machine’s error. At no point did customers agree to be detained, delayed or struck by automated barriers at the checkout.

The Carnes Hill incident reinforces that these devices are not only restrictive but unsafe. Any device that swings closed with enough force to cause pain or injury is a hazard. Any device that locks customers inside a store is a legal risk. And any device that mistakes innocent customers for suspects is a breach of public trust.

Australia is walking into a future where corporations automate security without considering the legal or human consequences. Shoppers are being treated as suspects by default. Their ability to leave the premises is being interrupted by faulty systems. Their safety is being placed second to corporate theft prevention.

There is now a strong argument that these gates could be breaking the law. They detain people without consent. They restrict movement. They rely on machines rather than human judgement. They injure customers. They override autonomy. And they appear to operate outside the boundaries of lawful security practice.

AFIPN will continue investigating this issue and will speak to more customers who have been stopped, delayed or injured by these gates. If this is happening across Australia, the public deserves the truth and supermarkets must be held accountable.

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