An Illinois woman filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday against Macy’s, claiming the corporation’s use of Clearview AI facial recognition software is an invasion of privacy.
Clearview is a research tool used by law enforcement agencies to identify perpetrators and victims of crimes, according to their website. Clearview compares images from crime scenes to images on the open web, including public social media accounts.
Clearview built its database of more than 3 billion images gathered from sites like Facebook, Youtube and Venmo, The New York Times reported in January.
Macy’s has run over 6,000 identities of individual customers through the database, according to the lawsuit. When Macy’s uploads photos of customers taken from security footage, Clearview then provides the retail company with access to that individual’s personal details, including names, home addresses and work addresses.
The Illinois lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois on behalf of Isela Carmine – a “regular customer at Macy’s” – and “all others similarly situated,” court documents say. Macy’s Retail Holdings, Inc. has 21 department stores in Illinois.
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The complaint asks Macy’s to “expunge, delete, and/or remove” all information associated with Illinois residents from Macy’s database or any other data collection.
The lawsuit states customers, including Carmine, are “at a greater risk of stalking, harassment, and identity theft” due to the facial recognition software.
“Any Macy’s employee with access to the surveillance database could use it for their own personal ends – for example, to stalk or track an individual,” the document says.
In Illinois, legislation entitled the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act safeguards Illinois’ residents’ absolute right to control their biometric data, documents say. This includes the positive identifications that Macy’s received from Clearview.
The complaint states that under the act, a private entity like Clearview or Macy’s must develop a written policy, available to the public, establishing a retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying the biometric identifiers or information. It must also inform subjects in writing that the information or identifier is being collected or stored and for what specific purpose and length before obtaining a person’s biometric information.
Macy’s has not provided any such policy, nor informed customers of its biometric information collection procedures, in violation of the act, documents say.
For each individual violation of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act, the complaint states a person may recover $1,000 for each negligent violation or $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation.
The Enquirer reached out to Macy’s for a response to the lawsuit.
“We are unable to comment on pending litigation,” Macy’s officials said.