Amazon class action claims Amazon Go stores collect biometric data during checkout

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Amazon Go class action overview: 

• Who: A Brooklyn man is suing Amazon over its Amazon Go convenience stores.
• Why: The plaintiff says the convenience stores use technology that breaches New York City’s new biometric privacy law.
• Where: The class action was filed in a New York federal court.

Amazon runs Amazon Go convenience stores in New York that breach the city’s biometric privacy laws by collecting data on customers’ body sizes and shapes as part of the checkout process, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

Plaintiff Alfredo Rodriguez Perez filed the class action lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc. on March 16 in a New York federal court, alleging violations of New York City’s Biometric Identifier Information Law (BIIL), which took effect in January 2022. 

Enacted in January 2021, the new law requires customers to be informed if a New York City business collects their biometric data, the lawsuit states. New York City businesses must post signage notifying customers if they collect, retain or share their biometric data.

However, the plaintiff said Amazon waited months after the bill took effect to post in-store signage detailing the technology it uses to track customers who come in and out of the stores.

Even after the notices were added, the plaintiff alleges the information on them “falls woefully short of complying” with the biometric privacy law and has “gone from bad to worse.”

“Instead of leaving customers in the dark about its collection of biometric information, as [the company] did for 14 months, Amazon is now affirmatively offering false assurances that it will not collect any biometric information from most customers,” he states.

Stores rely on algorithms and computer vision, lawsuit states

In 2019, Amazon rolled out the retail stores, which use its “Just Walk Out” technology to let customers pay without stopping at a register to check out. 

The technology relies on computer vision and deep-learning algorithms to track each person in the store and identify the items they select, then charge them once they leave, the lawsuit states.

The stores also distinguish customers from each other based on their body size and shape, which is considered biometric data under the BIIL, the plaintiff alleges.

He wouldn’t have entered the store had he known it collects his biometric data, he said. The signs in the store don’t identify the exact ways in which Amazon collects and retains consumer information, he adds. In fact, customers are told that no biometric data is taken from people who don’t use the company’s palm-scanning system, which is incorrect, he alleges.

The plaintiff seeks to represent anyone who made a purchase from a New York City Amazon Go store that did not have the correct notices in place from Jan. 15, 2022, to now. He seeks certification of the class action, damages, fees, costs and a jury trial.

Meanwhile, a number of allegations involving Amazon have recently been in the news, with lawsuits alleging unlawful worker data collection, deceptive selling illegal drug sale, sale of suicide chemicals and violations of labor laws. 

What do you think of the allegations pertaining to Amazon Go stores? Let us know in the comments! 

Rodriguez Perez is represented by Peter Romer-Friedman of Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC, Christopher K. Leung of Pollock Cohen LLP, and Albert Fox Cahn and David Siffert of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

The Amazon Go class action lawsuit is Rodriguez Perez, et al. v. Amazon.com Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-02251, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Manhattan.

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