Home Depot is accused of breaking the law by using facial recognition at self-checkout kiosks in Illinois.
The Home Depot is facing a class-action lawsuit in Illinois for allegedly collecting biometric data from customers without their consent.
The home improvement giant is on the receiving end of a class-action complaint filed Aug. 1 in Illinois federal court, accusing the company of violating state privacy laws, Top Class Actions reports. According to plaintiff Benjamin Jankowski, Home Depot has been collecting customers’ facial geometry without consent, which is in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The Illinois Legislature passed BIPA to regulate how biometric identifiers, like facial scans, are collected, used, and stored. The law requires companies to create publicly accessible written policies for retaining and destroying such data and to obtain individuals’ informed, written consent before collecting their biometric information.
Jankowski accuses Home Depot of ignoring the BIPA law and violating customers’ privacy rights in the process. He aims to represent all individuals whose facial geometry was collected at Illinois Home Depot stores, suing for BIPA violations and seeking class-action certification, damages, fees, costs, and a jury trial.
The plaintiff, a frequent Home Depot shopper in Chicago, claims that he recently noticed a camera and screen at a self-checkout kiosk displaying a green box around his face, indicating that the system was capturing his facial geometry. After seeing Home Depot’s facial recognition system in action and realizing the retailer hadn’t obtained his consent, Jankowski is suing for violations of Illinois state law.
The lawsuit comes amid the TSA’s ongoing use of facial recognition at airport security checkpoints nationwide, sparking pushback from lawmakers. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced to limit the TSA’s use of the technology, give travelers the right to opt out, and set strict rules on how the data is stored and used.
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Source: Black Enterprise
