False claims that shoppers will soon need to show photo ID to enter any supermarket in the UK are circulating widely online.
Videos being shared on social media, which appear to be mimicking a news broadcast, claim that from 12 September, shoppers will not be allowed to enter “any supermarket in the UK” without a “government-issued photo ID” as part of measures to stop shoplifting and fraud.
They say that staff will be at the doors to enforce the ID rule which “feels like airport-style security”. Failing an ID check could mean you are banned from that store for a month, the videos claim.
But these claims are all false. They form part of a number of misleading and alarmist videos we have seen spreading online about supposed new rules to limit personal freedoms in the UK.
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Full Fact contacted the UK’s largest supermarkets about the video’s claims that supermarkets will soon require photo ID to allow people to enter.
A spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium, a trade association which counts most of the UK’s largest supermarkets as members (such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl, Co-op and Marks & Spencer), said the video was “completely false”.
“There are no plans for anyone to have to show ID to go into a supermarket,” they said.
A spokesperson for ASDA also told us there are “no...
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