Jacksons faces lawsuit over facial recognition technology in the U.S.

Two customers have accused the retailer of violating a Portland, Oregon, city ordinance via the implementation of the technology in its stores.

Jacksons Food Stores is facing a lawsuit in regards to the implementation of facial recognition technology in its Portland, Oregon, stores. The retailer has deployed the software to help in the identification and prosecution of shoplifters but two customers have alerted on the possibility of the technology wrongly identifying people as criminals.

This accusation also implies that these errors can “disproportionately affect women and people of color”. According to a report by news site C-Store Dive, if the company is held liable, it will be obliged to pay the plaintiffs compensatory or statutory damages of $1,000 per day for each day of violation, which accumulates to approximately $10 million.

Due to the inexistence of federal law to regulate facial recognition technology in the United States, each state, county and city are responsible to set their own governances.

The Portland ordinance that the customers point out was approved back in September of 2020 and required that all bureaus, offices, and places of public accommodation by any private entity to cease the usage of this technology by January 1 of 2021. According to its initial release, this legislation was created to prioritize racial equity and data privacy while serving public needs and building trust around the collection and usage of public data.

The lawsuit,originally filed on December 1 of last year, claims that Jacksons installed facial recognition technology at various of its Portland locations even after the ordinance became effective. By this time, the company had implemented it in three of its stores throughout the area. The lawsuit was recently removed to the U.S. District Court District of Oregon, Portland Division.

Jacksons Food Stores operates more than 360 convenience stores under a variety of banners in the western U.S. This isn’t the first time facial recognition deployment causes controversy in the retail industry, in October of 2021, 7-Eleven Australia had to disable the technology at 700 of its sites across the country after customers protested against the obtaining of images without consent.