Sidewalk delivery robot operators Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics have been hit with proposed class actions in Illinois alleging that their robots captured the face and hand geometry of customers without consent, in violation of the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The two complaints were filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Mitchell Breidinger, the plaintiff in the suit against Coco, says he received a DoorDash order from a Coco robot on September 29 without having chosen robot delivery. Barry Schain, who is suing Serve, says an Uber Eats order was delivered to him by a Serve robot on October 4 under the same circumstances. The complaints say delivery apps can assign a robot without the customer selecting that option.
According to the complaints, the robots’ LiDAR sensors, which use infrared laser light to measure distance, recorded the three-dimensional geometry of each plaintiff’s face and hands, including “the distance from the sensor to the tip of the nose, the bridge of the nose, the cheekbones, the brow, the chin and jaw.” The plaintiffs allege the measurements were stored alongside their names and addresses, used to train the companies’ AI models and shared with third parties. The Coco complaint says live video of Breidinger was viewed by a remote pilot and transmitted to third parties including OpenAI.
BIPA covers retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints and scans of hand or face geometry, and requires companies to inform people and obtain their consent before collecting them. It allows damages of $1,000 per negligent violation and $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation. The proposed classes cover Illinois customers whose orders through DoorDash, Uber Eats, GrubHub or other platforms were delivered by a Coco or Serve robot and who were recorded by its cameras or LiDAR sensor.
Both companies deny the claims. “This lawsuit fundamentally misunderstands our technology, we have not collected biometric data in Chicago, and we are confident that this frivolous lawsuit will go away,” said Carl Hansen, head of government relations at Coco, which told the Chicago Tribune it has never used LiDAR in Chicago and had not yet been served.
Serve said its robots use cameras and sensors to navigate sidewalks safely. “Serve does not use that data to identify individuals and our systems are not designed to identify individuals or create biometric profiles,” the company said.
Both companies operate in Chicago under the city’s personal delivery device pilot program, which licensed Coco in November 2024 and saw Serve launch in September 2025. The pilot is set to expire in May 2027 unless the City Council ends it sooner or extends it.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, CBS Chicago
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
