2 min read
An 18-year-old teenager from New York has filed a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against Apple over a false arrest due to Apple’s facial recognition system. NYPD officers arrested Ousmane Bah on November 29th, after falsely linking him to a series of Apple store thefts in Boston, New Jersey, Manhattan, and Delaware.
Apparently, the real culprit stole the ID of Ousmane Bah and used his ID with name, address and other personal information to make thefts in Apple stores. However, the lawsuit mentions that Apple company programmed its stores’ facial recognition system to uncover the real thief’s face with Bah’s details.
A detective who examined the surveillance footage from the Apple store after the arrest was made, found that Bah didn’t look anything like the actual culprit. At the time of Boston theft where the thief stole $1200 worth of goods, Ousmane was attending his senior year prom in Manhattan.
The New York Post mentioned in its report 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”.
After the investigation conducted by the NYPD’s detective, the states including, Boston, Manhattan, and Delaware have dropped the charges against Ousmane Bah except for New Jersey, where the case decision is still pending.
