Amazon is facing a class-action lawsuit in New York City over not disclosing its use of facial recognition in its Go stores.
NYC is the only major city in the US that requires businesses to disclose when they are using facial recognition, according to CNBC. Amazon’s Go stores achieve their cashier-less by using a plethora of cameras to link a person’s purchases with their Amazon account.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Alfredo Perez, says Amazon violated NYC’s law by not clearly disclosing the use of facial recognition until just recently, when the company finally put up cameras.
“To make this ‘Just Walk Out’ technology possible, the Amazon Go stores constantly collect and use customers’ biometric identifier information, including by scanning the palms of some customers to identify them and by applying computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and sensor fusion that measure the shape and size of each customer’s body to identify customers, track where they move in the stores, and determine what they have purchased,” the lawsuit says.
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is representing Perez.
“It means that even a global tech giant can’t ignore local privacy laws,” Albert Cahn, project director, told CNBC in a text message. “As we wait for long overdue federal privacy laws, it shows there is so much local governments can do to protect their residents.”