Amazon-owned Ring should pay Americans for scanning their faces, lawsuit says - Ars Technica
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A lawsuit against Amazon is seeking financial damages for millions of Americans whose faces may have been recorded by Ring cameras since the Familiar Faces feature was rolled out late last year.
Plaintiff Charles Sigwalt yesterday filed a class action suit that aims to represent all people in the US “who had their facial recognition data collected, retained, and otherwise used by the Familiar Faces feature created and implemented by Defendant.” The lawsuit will seek “far” more than $5 million, but the $5 million figure was given in the complaint because US district courts have jurisdiction for civil actions seeking at least that amount.
“Here, there are millions of Americans who have walked by Ring cameras which have activated the Familiar Faces feature… the damages in this action far exceed $5,000,000.00 when calculating the statutory damages that may be owed to each Class member in addition to the actual damages caused by the aggregate loss of value of biometric information,” the lawsuit said.
Ring’s Familiar Faces feature is designed to identify people who appear at one’s door and provide alerts to the owner of the camera. Amazon says Familiar Faces is not enabled by default but that owners of Ring cameras can turn it on. Ring camera users can create a “personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces” so they can be alerted when one comes to the door.
Sigwalt lives in Virginia and filed the suit in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, where Amazon is headquartered. He proposes a nationwide class of all people in the US whose faces were scanned and a subclass for Virginia residents.
“Familiar Faces uses facial recognition technology to scan the face of all guests and passersby before categorizing who they are using artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit said. “AI then collects a ‘face print’ of the respective person and translates it into a unique patchwork of numbers that allows Ring to re-identify who that person is each time Familiar Faces deploys facial recognition on them.”
“Violates basic notions of consumer privacy”
The complaint notes that Familiar Faces isn’t available everywhere in the US because some areas have stricter privacy laws than others:
Ring clearly has the ability to follow biometric privacy laws with respect to the Familiar Faces feature—but it deliberately chooses not to. Specifically, Ring told The Washington Post that Familiar Faces will not be available in Texas, Illinois, or Portland, Oregon because each jurisdiction has strict laws banning this type of biometric facial recognition surveillance. However, the rest of the country, including Plaintiff and Class members do not get the same respect.
The lawsuit argues that Amazon’s conduct is illegal even in parts of the US without specific laws banning this type of facial recognition. The lawsuit pointed to a Federal Trade Commission policy statement that businesses “engaging in surreptitious and unexpected collection or use of biometric information” may violate the FTC Act’s prohibition on deceptive and unfair trade practices.
“Ring’s collection, retention, and use of biometric information without adequate consent demonstrates that Ring violates Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act—which protects against deceptive and unfair trade practices,” the complaint said, adding that “Ring’s collection of facial recognition [data] violates basic notions of consumer privacy in the United States.”
Lawsuit seeks injunction and payouts
The lawsuit further alleges violations of Virginia state laws, such as one prohibiting the use of people’s pictures for purposes of trade without their consent. “Defendant knowingly violated this provision of the Virginia code by using personal data, photographs, and likenesses in the form of pictures and biometric information of Plaintiff and Class members without their written consent for the purposes of trade,” the lawsuit said.
Other allegations include intrusion upon seclusion, negligence, and unjust enrichment. The complaint says Amazon did not compensate class members for the use and retention of their biometric data despite “increased sales due to the Familiar Faces feature of Ring cameras.” It seeks an injunction to change Amazon’s behavior, financial payouts to compensate class members for privacy violations, and disgorgement of profits.
Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Ars today.
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