18 year old New York student Ousmane Bah is suing Apple, the tech giant responsible for iPhone and iPad devices, for $1 billion after he was arrested for Apple Store thefts in multiple states that he didn’t commit. Bah claims that the arrest warrant included a photo of a thief that didn’t even resemble him, but he was arrested anyway. Bah is seeking the $1 billion in damages because he had to “respond to multiple false allegations” and suffered from “severe stress and hardship.” So far, the charges against Bah have been dropped in every state except New Jersey, where the investigation into the Apple Store thefts is still pending.
It’s unclear exactly how Apple’s facial-recognition technology mistook Bah for someone else, but Bah offers a theory in the lawsuit. Bah said that he lost his learner’s permit, and he believes that the thief used that permit to provide identification at the various Apple Stores. Apple’s facial-recognition technology it uses to track thieves then assigned Bah’s name to this individual, leading to the false accusations.
If the arrest warrant photo of someone other than Bah isn’t nothing evidence for some to believe he is telling the truth, he also has an alibi for at least one of the thefts. Apparently one of the Apple Store thefts took place in Boston, Massachusetts on the same day as his senior prom in Manhattan.
Whether or not Bah is entitled to or can collect such a huge amount of money is up in the air at this point. Apple itself has not responded publicly to the lawsuit. But perhaps in the future Apple will be more hesitant to use its facial-recognition technology to track thieves, especially since it has many projects in the works like its Apple Arcade game subscription service it would rather spend money on instead of lawsuits.
Source: The Times of India
