[All] “The person who just took the sandwich!”… Unmanned store owner who posted a photo of a middle school girl inside the store, mistaken for a thief, is sued

Such incidents also occur due to unmanned systems

The owner of an unmanned sandwich shop mistakenly thought a middle school girl was a thief and put up a photo of her face inside the shop, which resulted in him being sued by the student's parents.

According to police and others on the 3rd, Incheon Central Police Station received a complaint the day before from the parent of a middle school girl requesting punishment of Mr. A, a 40-year-old owner of an unmanned sandwich shop, for defamation and insult.

The father of middle school girl B, who sued Mr. A, confessed, "My daughter bought a 3,400 won sandwich at Mr. A's store late at night on the 29th of last month using 'smartphone simple payment'," and "when my daughter went to the store again two days later, there was a photo of her face posted."

He continued, "My daughter was so shocked when she saw the picture of herself being accused of being a thief that she can't even study properly now. How am I going to show my face in the future?"

At that time, Mr. A mistook Ms. B for a thief and captured the closed- circuit TV screen showing her face, printed it out on paper, and pasted it inside the store.

He wrote under the photo, "The woman who bought a sandwich and pretended to pay, then pressed the 'reset screen' button and just took it!! Did she kindly leave a picture of her face on the CCTV screen so that I could catch her? Please contact me."

However, Mr. A found out later that Ms. B had paid the full price for the sandwich.

Person A said, "It seems like there was an error because there is no record of B's ​​purchase on the payment device (kiosk) until now," and "I contacted the simple payment company yesterday morning and they confirmed that the payment was made normally."

He added, "I released the photo because I felt resentful that he was committing theft so audaciously, and I would like to apologize to the student who was hurt."

Ms. B's parents told the police that they wanted to punish Mr. A for damaging their daughter's reputation and insulting her by revealing her face without properly checking her payment details.

He continued, "My daughter, who was using the simple payment service for the first time, showed me the payment details on the CCTV inside the store out of fear that I might be mistaken for a thief if the payment didn't go through, but I was accused of being a thief," he said, expressing his grievance.

The police plan to soon call in B or her parents to question the accuser and then additionally confirm the facts with A.

A police official said, "We plan to summon the accuser for questioning soon and also consider whether to charge the unmanned store owner with defamation or insult."

There have been a series of theft incidents at unmanned stores recently, but posting a photo of a customer's face in public inside a store can result in criminal punishment.

In fact, the owner of an unmanned stationery store was indicted on charges of defamation for posting a photo of a customer's face inside the store out of suspicion of theft, and was sentenced to a fine of 300,000 won in the first trial in March.