Teen Sues Apple for $1 Billion, Saying Facial Recognition Mistook Him for a Thief

An 18-year-old student from New York is suing Apple for $1 billion, claiming he was wrongfully accused of stealing gadgets from a number of Apple stores in Boston, Manhattan, New Jersey and Delaware last year, writes The New York Post.

Ousmane Bah says the company”s facial recognition technology misidentified him after his ID was lost. It is believed his driving learner”s permit was found and possibly used in Apple store thefts. The document had no photo of the accused, and only included personal information such as his name and address.

The student claims he couldn”t have committed the thefts as he was attending his senior prom in Manhattan when one of the thefts occurred in Boston. Also, the person in the photo used in the warrant does not look like him, Bah says.

Bah says Apple “programmed its security systems to recognize the man”s face as Bah”s,” the article says. Its “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,” court documents say.

An NYPD detective analyzed the surveillance footage and confirmed the man in the images did not resemble the teenager.

The charges were dropped everywhere except for New Jersey.

Apple has not released a public statement on the lawsuit or mistaken identity due to its technology.