A Lower Hutt shopper who had his bag searched at a self-checkout without being asked has been offered an apology by Pak’nSave, in a case that has put a simple question back in front of New Zealand shoppers. When a supermarket worker wants to look in your bag, what are they actually allowed to do?
Hamid Ashraf was using the self-checkout at his local Pak’nSave with his son when a staff member took his bag, which held goods bought earlier at another store, and looked through it without asking first. He told RNZ it was the second time it had happened to him at the same shop, and that it was made worse by the crowd of weekend shoppers watching on, some of them his son’s schoolmates.
Ashraf said he and his son were both offended and embarrassed, and that his son felt humiliated when he went back to school. He said the experience left him feeling as though other shoppers were looking at him as if he were a thief. He was later sent an apology and offered a $100 gift card, which he turned down because he wanted the store to change how it treats customers rather than to be paid off.
Foodstuffs North Island, which owns the Pak’nSave brand in the upper North Island, accepted the worker had gone beyond what company rules allow. A spokesperson said staff can ask to see a bag, but “they do not have the right to search it, and any check must only occur with the customer’s consent and with the customer presenting the contents themselves”. The company said it expects every customer to be treated with respect and that on this occasion it had fallen short. Chief executive Chris Quin said the gift card had been offered as a goodwill gesture and that a cash payout was not appropriate in the circumstances.
The incident matters well beyond one store because it turns on a rule that a lot of shoppers get wrong. Many people assume that a sign near the entrance, or the simple fact of walking into a shop, gives staff the right to inspect their belongings on the way out. It does not.
Guidance published by Community Law is blunt on the point. Shops do not have the right to search you or your bag without your consent, and that stays true even where a sign at the door says bags may be checked. If a worker asks to look in your bag, you are entitled to say no. If they then use force to search it anyway, they may be committing a criminal assault, and you may also have a civil claim against them for damages. The one thing a shop can insist on is that you leave a bag at the front of the store before you come in, which is why some retailers keep a bag rack or lockers by the door.
The rules around stopping someone are just as narrow. Under the law as it stands, a shop worker or security guard can only physically prevent you from leaving if they have reasonable and probable grounds to believe you have stolen something, and then only when the goods are worth $1000 or more, or when it is between 9pm and 6am. Even in that situation, where a lawful citizen’s arrest is being made and a person is being held until police arrive, staff still have no power to search the person or their bag. That job belongs to the police.
Barrister Simon Shamy made the same point in plain terms, telling RNZ that a shopper who is asked to have their bag searched can refuse, and that a worker who tries to use force risks committing an assault and facing a claim for compensation. The practical takeaway for shoppers is that consent is everything. A store can request a look, and plenty of people will happily oblige to clear things up quickly, but that is a choice, not an obligation.
There is a privacy angle as well. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has published guidance noting that a search of a bag or other personal property can raise issues under the Privacy Act, depending on what the shop does with anything it sees. A quick glance to check for an unpaid item, followed by letting the customer carry on, sits at the milder end. Recording details, or holding on to information about a customer, is a different matter.
The backdrop to all of this is a live political debate about how much power ordinary people and retail workers should have to tackle theft. The Government has put forward a Crimes Amendment Bill that would widen citizen’s arrest powers so that anyone, including shop staff and security guards, could detain a suspected offender for any Crimes Act offence and at any hour, rather than being limited by the current value and time thresholds. That bill is still working its way through Parliament and has been examined by the Justice Committee, with legal groups and police among those warning it could put young and inexperienced retail workers in the path of violent confrontations. Even if it passes, it would expand the power to detain, not the power to search, which would remain with police.
For now the message from the Pak’nSave case is straightforward. Supermarkets can ask, and shoppers can agree or decline, but a worker who reaches into your bag uninvited is stepping outside both company policy and the law. Ashraf said he raised the matter not for the money but so that the next customer is treated better, and the store’s own admission that it fell short suggests the point landed. Our full guide to bag searches and your rights covers when a store can lawfully stop you, receipt checks, and what to do if you are wrongly accused.
Have you ever had your bag checked at a supermarket or been unsure of your rights at the checkout? Share your experience in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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