Amazon sued for not telling New York store customers about facial recognition
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/amazon-sued-not-telling-new-york-store-customers-facial-recognition-rcna75290
Amazon sued for not telling New York store customers about facial recognition
Thanks to a 2021 law, New York is the only major American city to require businesses to post signs letting customers know theyre tracking biometric information.
March 16, 2023, 11:50 AM EDT
By Kevin Collier
Amazon did not alert its New York City customers that they were being monitored by facial recognition technology, a lawsuit filed Thursday alleges.
In a class-action suit, lawyers for Alfredo Perez said that the company failed to tell visitors to Amazon Go convenience stores that the technology was in use. Thanks to a 2021 law, New York is the only major American city to require businesses to post signs if theyre tracking customers biometric information, such as facial scans or fingerprints.
Amazon introduced its Go stores in 2018, promising that customers could walk in, take whatever products they wanted off the shelves and leave without checking out. The company monitors visitors actions and charges their accounts when they leave the store. It opened its first New York location the following year, and has 10 stores, all in Manhattan, according to its website.
The lawsuit says that Amazon only recently put up signs informing New York customers of its use of facial recognition technology, more than a year after the disclosure law went into effect. Amazon didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.
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