Apple sued for $1bn for blaming wrong person for theft

A New York City-based student is suing Apple for $1 billion, accusing the iPhone-maker of using its facial recognition technology and arresting the wrong person on charges of theft from an Apple Store.

Ousmane Bah, 18, claimed in a lawsuit that he was incorrectly identified as a robber in several Apple Store theft cases across multiple states in the US, but denies that he is the person in the photo that accompanied the warrant for his arrest, The Verge reported on tuesday.

In its defence, Apple said it does not even use facial recognition technology in its stores.

Supporting Apple on the lawsuit, Security Industry Specialists (SIS) said the error in recognising the person could have happened by the company that used facial recognition to analyse the security footage, possibly outside of Apple's facilities.

SIS Inc provides unique security solutions to Fortune 500 luxury brands and tech companies.

"SIS doesn't explicitly mention Apple as a client on its public website but the third-party firm seems to have a long working relationship with Apple, and a 2016 employee handbook hosted at its website specifies Apple as a client," the report added.

The lawsuit states that Bah was presented with a police report which claimed a SIS loss prevention employee caught him stealing Apple Pencils on a security video footage from a Boston-based Apple Store.

Bah, on the other hand, claimed that at the time he was attending his senior prom in Manhattan. However, he does speculate that the real thief could have stolen his information from a learner's permit without his photo that had been previously lost.

Backed by surveillance footage and the testimony of detective John Reinhold, district attorneys in New York and Boston have already dropped the charges against Bah, although he is still being accused of larceny in New Jersey in a pending case.

--IANS

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