Home improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe’s have become the latest big companies to get swiped by class action lawsuits under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law, as a group of plaintiffs have sought to extend the reach of the law’s potentially big financial awards to those stores’ anti-theft surveillance systems. According to the law suit, the retailers have “augmented (their) in-store security cameras with software that track individuals’ movements throughout the store using a unique scan of face geometry,” the lawsuit said. “Put simply, Defendants surreptitiously attempt to collect the faceprint of every person who appears in front of one of their facial-recognition cameras.”
The two retail giants say they use the security cameras to prevent in store theft. The lawsuit claims the stores do not inform customers of the cameras use. It further argues that the stores track customers as they move throughout the store and also tracks an individual if they visit subsequent stores. While the suit does not list malicious use of the videos, however it does acknowledge the companies do not identify how long the retailers might keep the data. But the lawsuit does claim Home Depot and Lowe’s have shared the facial scan information of its customers with others. The complaint does not assert who those others may be, naming only “John Doe” as a co-defendant. The state of Illinois does have a Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) which requires companies that record images of the public follow certain procedures. The suit charges that the companies have not followed the guidelines outlined in these laws.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7486615/Home-Depot-Lowes-secretly-using-facial-recognition-cameras-track-customers-say-lawsuits.html
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