Ousmane Bah, a teenager from New York, has just opened a lawsuit against the iconic tech conglomerate that is Apple after claiming that the company’s beloved facial recognition software led to his false arrest.
Specifically, Ousmane was arrested on the 29th of November as he was seen to be the man behind a number of Apple Store thefts that took place across Boston, New Jersey, Delaware and Manhattan. Nonetheless, Ousmane was not the guilty individual, in fact, the real thief was simply using a stolen ID that featured Bah’s name, address and personal information. However, this ID did not feature a photograph, this is important as it when Bah was arrested a photo of him was put forward that was provided by Apple. Consequently, this means that Apple must have used their device’s facial recognition software to associate the thief’s face with Bah’s details without either of them knowing.
Although it doesn’t seem like a big deal in this specific case, the $1 billion lawsuit highlights the fact that this will likely be happening to millions of consumers all of the time without their knowledge. Sating that Apple’s “use of facial recognition software in its stores to track individuals suspected of theft is the type of Orwellian surveillance that consumers fear, particularly as it can be assumed that the majority of consumers are not aware that their faces are secretly being analyzed.”
I guess we will have to see how this lawsuit pans out in the future, stay tuned to be updated.
